Gang Member, Brother Convicted of Killing Witness

A Parthenia Street gang member, accused of ordering his 16-year-old ex-girlfriend killed to prevent her from testifying against him in an assault and kidnapping trial, was convicted Monday of first-degree murder.

Juan Manuel Lopez, 25, could be sentenced to death. The penalty phase of his trial is scheduled to begin today in San Fernando Superior Court. Lopez also was convicted of kidnapping, assault with a deadly weapon and burglary. Those were the charges he faced two years ago when, the prosecutor said, he ordered his brother, Ricardo, to shoot to death Melinda “Mindy” Carmody.

A jury also convicted Ricardo Lopez, 19, of first-degree murder Monday. Because he was a minor at the time, Ricardo Lopez faces a maximum of life in prison. His sentencing was set for Aug. 4.

Deputy Dist. Atty. John Nantroup declined comment, pending the outcome of the penalty phase.

Carmody was gunned down on a Northridge street in April 1996, two weeks after she testified that Juan Lopez illegally entered her house, threatened her with a knife and hit her.

Lopez and another man drove Carmody to Juan Lopez’s aunt’s house in Los Angeles. The woman cleaned the girl’s wounds and drove her home, Carmody told the court at a preliminary hearing.

“He said if he can’t have me, no one can,” Carmody testified.

In the days before Carmody’s death, Juan Lopez was looking for someone to kill her, plotting from his jail cell, the prosecutor said in court. After a fellow gang member turned him down, he turned to his brother for help.

Juan Lopez used a ruse of the “jumping in” or initiation of a new member, a friend of Carmody’s, to lure Carmody to the Parthenia Street gang’s hangout on Shoenborn Street, according to court testimony.

In a statement to police, Ricardo Lopez said he fired several rounds at Carmody. Witnesses said that Carmody collapsed after the first few rounds, then began crawling on the street. Lopez, they said, then fired a final, fatal bullet into her head.

Ida Campbell-Thomas, a lawyer representing Ricardo Lopez, told the jury last week that although her client did pull the trigger, it was not part of a plan but a crime of passion. He was angry about what he said were lies that Carmody was telling about his brother, she said.

Campbell-Thomas declined comment Monday.

Also declining comment was Martin Gladstein, lawyer for Juan Lopez.

He had argued in court last week that the prosecutor had not proved a murder conspiracy took place and instead was asking the jury to speculate on unanswered questions. He suggested Carmody made up the assault allegations to cover up having been with Lopez, pointing to testimony by Lopez’s relatives that she was with him voluntarily and was not injured.