Deputies Tell How Slaying Affects Them

For 19 months Sheriff’s Deputy James Fryhoff has awoken in the night, wishing he had killed Michael Raymond Johnson.

“I’m very upset with myself that I didn’t kill him,” Fryhoff testified Wednesday. “I feel very hostile that I didn’t do it. It’s something I live with every day.”

And every night.

For months after the shooting, Fryhoff said he would “reach for a gun that wasn’t there” in a final, failed attempt to save his 26-year-old fallen partner, Deputy Peter J. Aguirre.

Last month the jury found Johnson guilty of first-degree murder for fatally shooting Aguirre in July 1996 when he responded to a domestic disturbance call at the home of Johnson’s estranged wife in Meiners Oaks.

The jury also found Johnson eligible for the death penalty because of two special circumstances: He committed a murder during a kidnapping and killed an on-duty police officer.

As part of the penalty phase of the trial, the jury must now decide whether to sentence Johnson to life in prison without parole or death.

Fryhoff was the first of three law enforcement witnesses called by prosecutors Wednesday to tell the jury how Aguirre’s death has affected them--and how it has forever changed the way they do their job.

When Deputy Dist. Atty. Matt Hardy approached Fryhoff on the witness stand with a photo of Fryhoff crying in the arms of another officer the day Aguirre was slain, the deputy bowed his head and began sobbing.

Unable to continue, he was led from the courtroom.

After a short break, Fryhoff testified he did not sleep for two weeks after the killing. He ate little during this time. And he cried a lot.

Then on his first day back on the job after six weeks off, Fryhoff was summoned on a domestic disturbance call to the very address where Aguirre was shot: 122 N. Encinal Ave.

“How did you feel when you heard that call?” Hardy asked Fryhoff.

“It sent chills down my spine,” he answered.

The 26-year-old officer said Aguirre’s death has transformed him from an aggressive officer who loved his job and made many arrests into a listless employee who does what he has to, and little more.

“Do you think you will stay on in law enforcement?” Hardy asked.

“I don’t know,” Fryhoff said.

After Fryhoff’s testimony that he wished he had killed Johnson, Judge Steven Z. Perren reminded the jury that Fryhoff’s words were “just an opinion by a witness about what he thinks should happen to the defendant.”

“The decision regarding his punishment is exclusively yours,” Perren told the jury, some of whom shed tears during Fryhoff’s testimony. “Remember you are not instruments of one side or the other, but of the law.”

Sheriff’s Deputy David Sparks, who was first on the scene after Aguirre was shot, next took the stand.

Sparks recounted his friendship with Aguirre and the devastating effect his death has had on his family.

He said his two oldest children now live in fear that their father might not come home.

Like Fryhoff, Sparks is plagued by a recurring dream about the day Aguirre died.

“I saw another officer involved in a shooting. I had to shoot, but my gun wasn’t shooting,” he said in a voice so low it was almost inaudible.

“Have you thought about getting another job?” Hardy asked him.

“Yeah.”

“How come?” Hardy asked.

“I don’t know,” Sparks said. “Sometimes I just don’t think it’s worth it.”

Capt. James Barrett, who manages the sheriff’s Ojai Valley station took the stand last.

He said Aguirre’s death has completely changed the way he looks at law enforcement.

“It makes you reassess,” he said. “It makes you do some soul searching. It makes you wonder why you are in this business.”

The defense had no questions.

Aguirre was killed when he stepped inside the Meiners Oaks home and was immediately shot three times by Johnson, who burst naked from the shower, guns blazing, according to testimony.

The last shot was fired at point-blank range after the deputy collapsed on the floor--his gun still in its holster.