Simi Valley Man to Stand Trial in Accidental Slaying of 17-Year-Old

A Simi Valley auto repair man had no right to use a weapon when he made the deadly mistake of shooting a boy he thought was a burglar, a judge said Monday.

The judge ordered Edward Nishida Drake, 50, to stand trial on a charge of voluntary manslaughter in the killing of 17-year-old Leonard Anthony Coppola on Oct. 10, 1997.

The accident was especially tragic because Drake liked Coppola, who had worked in a motorcycle shop two doors away.

Drake’s attorney, public defender Robert Willey, argued that the charge should be reduced to involuntary manslaughter.

“When the tragic mistake was made, it was made out of negligence,” Willey told Ventura Superior Court Judge Charles W. Campbell Jr.

But the judge disagreed.

“The use of a deadly firearm was not justified,” Campbell ruled. “Even if the victim was a burglar attempting to get through the locked gate, unless he had a weapon and threatened to use it, he wouldn’t have had the right to use a deadly firearm.”

Drake “is at least guilty of voluntary manslaughter,” the judge said.

If convicted, Drake faces up to 21 years in prison. A trial date is to be set April 13.

Just a few hours before the shooting, Drake had given Coppola and his friend, Gary Eisenhauer, now 18, meat for a weekend camping trip. The boys told Drake they would return later to pick up equipment from the automotive yard shared by Drake and two other businesses.

Employees of the three businesses knew the combination to the padlock that secured the lot on the 900 block of Chambers Lane in Simi Valley.

About 9 p.m., the boys parked their cars in the street, Eisenhauer testified. While Coppola went to open the gate, Eisenhauer darted inside the nearby motorcycle shop to call his girlfriend, who had just paged him.

He had dialed three digits when he heard the rattling of the lock, and then a boom, Eisenhauer testified. He rushed out to the street.

“I saw him lying on the ground, and I thought it was a joke,” Eisenhauer said. “You know, when you’re young, you play around all the time.

“I went and turned him over and saw he had been shot in the head.”

He said Drake was standing in the window of the shop, holding a gun.

“His face reminded me of a bunch of question marks,” Eisenhauer said.

The boy yelled for Drake to call 911, which Drake did.

According to testimony from a police detective, Drake had thought it was a burglar who was fumbling with the lock.

Drake told police he had drunk a few glasses of brandy during dinner that night and fallen asleep on a cot about 8:30 p.m.

He was awakened by what he thought was the sound of metal tapping on his office window.

Drake went into the back office, where he saw headlights, and believed someone was trying to break in.

He grabbed a .44-caliber revolver and kicked open the front door. He yelled “Freeze!” at a figure crouched against the chain-link fence trying to open the combination lock, according to a police report. The figure put both hands on the lock.

“The next thing he remembers is the gun went off,” testified Detective William Daniels, head of the violent crime unit for the Simi Valley Police Department. “He didn’t immediately realize he shot anyone. He didn’t know how the gun went off.”

Coppola was shot from 7 feet away.

Drake told the investigator he was terrified that “the guy was going to kill” him.

None of the witnesses spoke badly of Drake.

But his former business partner, Robert Gorecki, said Drake’s drinking problem had grown so severe in the months before the killing that they had agreed to split the business.

At the time, Drake was separating from his wife and sleeping some nights at the shop. He kept several guns there because his wife would not allow them at home.