Brother Asked Brother to Kill, Authorities Say

Days after his ex-girlfriend testified in court that he had kidnapped and beaten her, authorities said, Parthenia Street gang member Juan Manuel Lopez called a homeboy from jail, trying to convince him to shut her up for good.

He figured that, if she died before trial, say in a drive-by shooting, he could avoid the conviction, authorities allege.

But Lopez’s friend wouldn’t do it, according to court records.

Instead, he told detectives, he and other Parthenia Street gang members watched as Lopez’s then 17-year-old brother allegedly gunned down Melinda “Mindy” Deanne Carmody.

Even as she tried to run away into Schoenborn Street, he kept shooting, according to witnesses, and after she collapsed and began to crawl on the road, he shot a final round into her head.

She was 16.

Lopez, 25, is facing death for allegedly ordering the shooting. Because he was a minor at the time, his brother, Ricardo Lopez, faces a maximum of life in prison. The brothers’ trial is to begin in San Fernando Superior Court this week.

Deputy Dist. Atty. John Nantroup declined comment on the case.

But the younger Lopez, whose nickname, “Diablo,” is Spanish for devil, confessed to police days after the shooting, according to court records. He then led detectives to the murder weapon, which he had hidden in a heater in the living room of his house on Roscoe Boulevard.

At a hearing last year, members of the Parthenia Street gang and its female counterpart, Parthenia Baby Locas, testified about being contacted by Juan Lopez about killing Carmody or witnessing her slaying.

Defense attorneys representing the brothers have argued in court that the shooting was not the result of Juan Lopez’s order but a rash act by his younger brother during an argument. As such, they said, Ricardo Lopez, now 19, should be charged only with second-degree murder and his older brother should face, at most, charges of soliciting murder.

Martin Gladstein, who represents Juan Lopez, declined to comment. Ida Campbell-Thomas, Ricardo Lopez’s lawyer, could not be reached for comment.

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According to court records, Carmody and Juan Lopez began dating in early 1995.

As their relationship blossomed, she moved in with him and his family, then went with him to Arizona, relatives and friends have said. But after they returned to California, they called it quits.

During a court hearing, Carmody easily remembered the exact date they broke up: Feb. 27, 1996.

She said Juan Lopez called her a month later, saying he wanted to come by her Panorama City house and pick up some papers, records show. She said she asked him not to, but about an hour later, at 11 a.m. on March 13, 1996, he walked into her house through the garage door and found her in the living room.

“He asked me if I wanted to leave with him. I said no, and he came after me with a knife,” she said during a preliminary hearing last year on kidnapping and assault charges against Juan Lopez.

She said he hit her in the back of the neck, cutting her, and she fell onto the couch. Then, she said, he choked her until she fell to the floor.

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

Then Lopez allegedly pulled her by the hair to her bedroom, where he shoved some of her clothes into a bag, then pulled her into a waiting car driven by a man she didn’t know.

He took her to his aunt’s house in Los Angeles and left, she said. Before he returned, the aunt cleaned up Carmody’s wounds and drove her home.

Carmody, then 15, picked up her home telephone and called her mother. Then she called police.

‘I’m scared of him,” she said in tearful testimony two weeks before her death. “When I was dating him, he told me if I ever broke up with him, he would kill me.”

According to court records, Juan Lopez called three people the week of Carmody’s death, looking for someone to do the job for him.

He called fellow gang member George Uribe three times, LAPD homicide Det. Michael Opelt told the court, each time becoming “more emphatic, more insistent on wanting the act committed.”

Uribe turned him down.

“He told him that he wouldn’t do that, that he had no reason to do that for him,” Opelt said.

Court records show Lopez later called a female gang member, asking her if she “would kill a homegirl.” When she said it depended on what she’d done, Lopez allegedly replied: “Don’t worry about it, I already have somebody doing it.”

That somebody, authorities say, was his brother. Los Angeles homicide Det. Robert Bogison said Ricardo Lopez confessed to him that his brother called him twice from jail the week of the killing and asked him to shoot Carmody.

“He said [Juan] was crying and upset about the lies that Mindy Carmody had testified to in court,” Bogison said. He specifically asked his brother to shoot Carmody on April 12, 1996, a Friday, the officer said.

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That night, the gang was to meet at their usual hangout between apartment buildings and the rear of Northridge Middle School on Schoenborn Street. The purpose was to come up with dues for the Mexican Mafia and to “jump in” a new female member who was a friend of Carmody’s, court records show.

Carmody joined her friends that night, sharing 40-ounce bottles of malt liquor and hanging out.

But she apparently felt ill at ease.

“She asked me was Diablo going to do anything to her. I told her no,” Ramon Ramos said.

He was wrong.

Uribe told police that Ricardo Lopez asked him for his gun that night. Uribe said he handed it over with a warning not to do “anything stupid.”

Witnesses said Uribe approached Carmody during the night and told her Ricardo Lopez, who was standing across the street, wanted to talk to her. It was about 9 p.m.

Carmody and Ricardo Lopez began arguing, witnesses told authorities. Then Lopez pulled the gun and shot her, as their fellow gang members watched.

“After I heard the first shot, I looked and she started running towards me,” Ramos said. “She yelled my name.”

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As she ran into the street, Ramos and other witnesses said, Lopez kept firing, shooting her in the back.

“After the shots--I don’t know how many--she fell in the middle of the street. She started crawling. I looked at her and she looked at me,” Ramos said. “She was crawling towards me. I started walking towards her.”

Then, Ramos and others said, Lopez walked up to her and shot her in the head.

Ricardo Lopez later told authorities that he “fired the gun until it didn’t work anymore,” according to court records.

Ramos said he walked up to Lopez and told him to hand over the gun, but instead Lopez “pointed it to his head and said: ‘It’s for my carnal,’ ” Ramos said, using the street slang for brother.

He pulled the trigger, but the gun quietly clicked. It was empty.

Ramos said he turned around and walked toward Carmody, who was lying in the street in a puddle of blood.

“I didn’t want nothing to do with this, so I went in my car and I left. I wanted to take her to the hospital but there was nothing I could do,” he said. “Her eyes were open, but she was completely dead.”

Four female gang members said they also wanted to help Carmody. They said they walked up to her and called her name, court records show. When she didn’t answer, they said they piled into a car, drove to a pay telephone and dialed 911.

One of the female gang members later told authorities that Ricardo Lopez had shown her a gun earlier that night and told her if “something happened” to say it was a drive-by shooting. She said she didn’t know what he was talking about.

If the killing were motivated by an effort to skirt charges, as authorities allege, it was fruitless.

Juan Lopez still faces the kidnapping, assault and burglary charges for the initial attack on Carmody, whose preliminary hearing testimony is expected to be read into the record at trial.