Police Search for Motive in Card Dealer’s Slaying

Investigators were searching Thursday for the killer of a local card club dealer who was shot while counting out receipts the night before.

Why 36-year-old Craig Gronenthal--described by friends as a friendly and outgoing ex-Marine--was shot to death is still a mystery, Ventura Police Lt. Don Arth said.

“We’re assuming the motivation was robbery, but we can’t say for sure right now,” Arth said.

Some former dealers said there were still $20 bills lying on a counter top when police arrived soon after the shooting, but police were trying to determine if some money was missing.

Distraught over her son’s death, Eleanor Gronenthal said she could not imagine why anyone would want to kill him.

“Oh, he was an angel,” she said. “I think the reason a lot of people went to that club was because of Craig.”

One friend said Gronenthal was so kind that she constantly felt compelled to tell him how special he was.

“He was more than nice, he was the best of all men,” said Judy Piano, a former dealer at the club who knew Gronenthal for about six years.

“The best way to describe him is he was the kind of man every mother would want their son to be,” Piano said. “He was patriotic, an ex-Marine who was loving and warm, and he could make you feel like a million bucks when he walked into a room. I don’t think he had a mean bone in his body. This was a wonderful man.”

Gronenthal, who had been a dealer and then a floorman at the Ash Street Card Club, was shot twice in the head about 11:30 p.m. Wednesday night. He had been alone in the card room before the shooting occurred.

When police arrived, they found Gronenthal dead and lying inside a barred enclosure referred to as a “cage” where patrons exchange money for chips.

The card room, located on the backside of the Elks Club at 11 S. Ash St. in downtown Ventura, is usually open until 2 a.m. But because of a lack of players, Gronenthal had decided to close early, several club-goers said.

But he had left the door open and was waiting for another card dealer to return to repay a marker.

“That probably was a mistake,” one former dealer said.

The door of the club opens on a parking lot behind the Elks Club. Running along the parking lot is a dark, one-way alley that dumps onto Fir Street. A freeway onramp is about two blocks away. One former dealer described the setup as “perfect for a robber.”

Police said they have no witnesses and little information on a suspect. One woman employee of the club was upstairs in the bar during the incident, but authorities would not say whether she heard anything suspicious before the shooting.

Although one former dealer said a gun was often kept in the cage, police said Gronenthal was not armed when he was shot.

The club also never had much money on hand, several members said. The card games maintained low limit bets of between $3 to $6 and there is often no more than a few hundred dollars.

But the club was the target of a strong-arm robbery four years ago. During that incident, a man grabbed a patron just as he left the club, put a gun to his head and walked him back inside. The man then ordered everyone to the floor and had them empty their pockets and the cash drawers into a backpack before leaving.

“It was pretty frightening,” recalled Ross Stubbert, who helped run the club for several years in the early 1990s and was at the club during the robbery.

Afterward the club hired a security guard and installed a silent alarm, but the security guard was let go because it cost too much money, club members said.

Between dealing out cards for poker and counting out the day’s receipts, Gronenthal sometimes liked to entertain friends at the card club by reading their fortunes.

Perhaps her son had seen his fate in the cards, his mother said. Gronenthal had given her an envelope two years ago sealed with the words “To be opened if I should die.”

In the letter, Gronenthal, a devout Catholic who gave 10% of his yearly earnings to the church, told her that he wanted to be buried in his dress blue Marine uniform and have a 21-gun salute at his funeral.

“He also wanted bagpipes to play ‘Amazing Grace,’ ‘Ava Maria’ and ‘One Body, One Christ’ at the church,” she said.

“I don’t know why he wrote the letter; maybe he had a premonition,” said his mother, who says she is a professional psychic.

He signed the letter: “I love everybody, Craig.”

FYI

Investigators are asking anyone with information about Gronenthal’s shooting to contact Ventura Police Sgt. Gary McCaskillat 339-4482.