El Rio Man Guilty in Highway Attacks on Women

A Superior Court judge found an El Rio man guilty Thursday in a string of Thanksgiving 1996 attacks in which he forced four cars off the road and assaulted the women drivers.

Judge Allan Steele found Silverio Ambriz, 31, guilty of 14 felonies, including rape, assault, kidnapping, robbery and solicitation for murder. He set sentencing for Jan. 12.

Ambriz raped one woman and assaulted three others in the attacks off California 118 near Somis.

The judge’s swift pronouncement brought gasps and tears of relief and joy from the victims and their relatives and friends. As prosecutor Jacqueline Wise left the courtroom, they erupted in loud applause.

“I think everyone in the courtroom was very very happy with the outcome. It was a pleasure to watch [Wise] work,” said a relative of one of the victims. He said the case against Ambriz was strong, making it difficult to put up a strong defense.

Wise agreed. She said the key to Ambriz’s arrest was a partial license plate provided by one of the victims, but numerous other pieces of evidence were also important.

Wise noted that some of the victims and other witnesses picked Ambriz in a lineup, all of them noting his distinctive, almond-shaped eyes. One woman testified that “she would never forget the eyes,” she said.

The testimony was graphic, painting a picture of a man on a rampage.

Ambriz fought with his wife earlier that night, after she refused to have sex with him, then drove off in his truck. He rammed three vehicles and attempted to sexually assault the victims but they managed to get away.

The fourth woman, whose car flipped over, was taken to a lemon orchard and raped, then hogtied and left naked. Before he left the scene, Ambriz ripped a hoop earring from her, saying “I want to remember you by this.”

Wise noted that evidence taken at the scene and later by medical technicians added to the weight of the case. For example, tire tracks in the dirt matched those on Ambriz’s truck--which has three different types of tires. And cotton fibers and dirt taken from the victim’s genital area matched those found on Ambriz. Semen samples also were a match, she said.

The defendant also had no explanation for the damage to his truck, and detectives found property belonging to the victims in the cab.

“This was the worst case I’ve ever seen,” she said. “A true predator.”

While in jail, Ambriz contacted a fellow inmate and asked him to have one of the victims killed. That inmate went to police, who had him secretly record conversations with Ambriz.

The tapes clearly showed Ambriz giving orders to kill the woman, including such statements as “Do her in.”

Wise noted that the tapes show Ambriz describing the woman to the “hit man,” noting her tattoos and other details that he could only know if he were guilty.

Deputy Public Defender Gary Windom said his client had been drinking that night and has little memory of anything that happened, although he denied the solicitation for murder charge. His statement, Windom said, is simply: “I had something to drink, I went home, and I went to sleep.”

Windom argued that the robbery charge should be dropped because there was no indication the earring was taken by force and added that one of the sexual assault counts involved an accidental touching of the victim’s genitals while she was being tied up.

He also expressed concern that his client’s rights were being swallowed up in a tide of anger that might have obscured the evidence.

“This case is a very serious case, and it should not be based on emotion. It should not be based on name-calling. It should be based on the facts,” Windom said.

But Steele was unswayed, making his ruling swiftly at the close of arguments. Ambriz faces up to 25 years to life on the most serious counts.