Deputies Testify in Slaying of Colleague in Meiners Oaks

Peter Aguirre’s fellow deputies took the witness stand in Superior Court on Thursday and calmly recounted the day last year when he was shot to death in a Meiners Oaks home while responding to a domestic disturbance call.

The testimony drew tears from some spectators in the nearly full courtroom. But Aguirre’s accused killer, Michael Raymond Johnson, sat quietly at the witness table, dressed in a black suit and tie.

Johnson faces counts of murder and attempted murder, as well as kidnapping and rape of his estranged wife in a July 1996 spree that ended with Aguirre dead and Johnson wounded in the chest.

Two of the three other deputies on the scene that day, Steve Sagely and James Fryhoff, testified Thursday. The fourth, David Sparks, is scheduled to testify today.

Sagely and Fryhoff both recounted the chain of events that began when Sagely and Aguirre interrupted their lunch to answer a domestic dispute call, with the dispatcher telling the pair there were guns in the house on Encinal Avenue. Fryhoff and Sparks went in to provide backup.

Sagely said he was outside the home with Johnson’s estranged wife, and that Aguirre had just gone inside. Sagely said he heard his partner say, “Hey, Mike,” followed quickly by a series of three or four shots. Fryhoff and Sparks were stationed at the back entrance.

Fryhoff said all three men took up defensive positions. He said he saw Johnson through a window, heading for the front door. He ran in that direction, Fryhoff testified, taking cover behind a large oak tree as Johnson emerged from the house.

“As soon as I came ‘round the corner, he began shooting at me,” Fryhoff said. When asked how he could be sure Johnson was firing at him, Fryhoff replied, “I could hear the bullets flying by me.”

Fryhoff said he returned fire, striking Johnson in the chest. He testified he then handcuffed the fallen man, adding that he was in such an agitated state that he did not initially notice that Johnson was naked.

Meanwhile, Sagely said, he and Sparks had entered the house looking for Aguirre, moving cautiously and calling out “Sheriff’s Department” in case there was a second gunman. Then they saw their fallen partner on the floor in the hallway, Sagely testified.

“He [Aguirre] was bleeding profusely from the face,” said Sagely, who just two weeks earlier had transferred to Ojai from a post at the Todd Road Jail. “He was trying to sit up. It appeared his airway was clogged with blood and he was having a real hard time breathing.”

According to previous testimony, Aguirre’s gun had not been fired and was still in its holster.

Prosecutors say Johnson lunged naked from a bathroom and fired before Aguirre could react.

According to Deputy Dist Atty. Matthew Hardy, Johnson had armed himself with two semiautomatic handguns, a .45-caliber and a .32-caliber, and had kidnapped and raped his estranged wife before attacking the officers. The deputies had been summoned by the woman’s daughter.

Deputy Public Defender Todd Howeth does not deny Johnson committed the killing. He is arguing, however, that Johnson’s estranged wife went with him willingly and that there was no rape.

Howeth is also hoping to prove to the jury that Johnson had a psychological breakdown that day, and did not commit the slaying with premeditation.