Sniper Suspect Leads Police to Weapon

Police in Mexico said Thursday that Dennis Albert Macchione, the Buena Park man accused of using a high-powered rifle to ambush cars and kill a Southern California woman, has led them to a hilltop where they recovered a rifle and shell casings.

Macchione, 33, of Buena Park, has denied being the sniper and said an unidentified accomplice who escaped to the United States is to blame.

However, Police Cmdr. Javier Marquez in Rosarito said Macchione has admitted under questioning that he was the sniper who killed Debra Lynn Penney Campos of Brawley July 2 as she rode in a pickup. Marquez said Macchione, who was arrested Sunday, confessed after two days of questioning by Rosarito detectives.

Macchione later led Rosarito police to a small cave atop a hill overlooking the toll road linking Ensenada and Rosarito, where investigators found seven shell casings and a 7.62-millimeter rifle hidden under a rock, Marquez said. Authorities are not saying whether the same rifle and casings were used in the attacks.

Campos, 46, died instantly when a rifle round pierced the windshield of the pickup and struck her above the left eye. She was sitting between two friends returning from a fishing trip in Ensenada when she was shot.

Jose Lauro Ortiz, spokesman for the Baja California attorney general’s office, said Macchione is also a suspect in shootings Saturday and Sunday, when two vehicles were hit in the same area south of Rosarito.

Marquez said nobody was injured in those shootings but two young girls riding in a motor home narrowly escaped serious injury when a bullet passed between them.

Macchione, who has a history of mental problems, expressed a dislike for affluent Americans, which may have been part of the reason he allegedly fired at late-model cars on the toll road, Mexican authorities said.

“He said he didn’t like capitalism and thought people driving newer cars were capitalists,” Ortiz said.

However, Ortiz said one of the vehicles shot had Baja California plates and belonged to a Mexican citizen. Earlier reports had Macchione targeting only cars with California plates.

Ortiz said investigators’ reports have been forwarded to a judge, who under Mexican law has 72 hours to determine if there is enough evidence to hold Macchione on charges that include murder, two counts of attempted murder and weapons violations.

If convicted on all charges, Macchione could be sentenced to 20 to 40 years in prison, Ortiz said.

Rosarito police were investigating Campos’ death when they received additional reports Saturday and Sunday that two more cars were hit with bullets, Marquez said.

A police car was dispatched to the scene and parked on a bridge, Marquez said. The officer saw Macchione walking down a hill, dressed in camouflage fatigues and carrying a bag, he said.

“When Macchione saw the patrol car, he turned around and ran back up the hill. The officer called for backup, and other officers arrived to search for the suspect,” Marquez said.

At about 11 p.m., Macchione was found hiding in a canyon. Officers found a sniper’s rifle scope inside his bag, Marquez said.

After two days of questioning, police said Macchione admitted that he shot at the cars and led officers to his hiding spot atop a hill, where the rifle and casings were found.

Macchione said he made a deal with police to show them where the rifle was hidden if they would let him go. Instead, he was taken into custody.

“They betrayed me,” Macchione said.

Meanwhile, Campos’ body remains at a morgue and authorities are waiting for her next of kin to claim it, said Gilberto Ramirez, spokesman for the Baja California coroner’s office in Tijuana.

Police said Campos was riding with brothers James Robert and Eddy Richard Dowell when she was shot. The three were en route to Tijuana.

Macchione is well-known to Buena Park police and had been under a psychiatrist’s care.

In 1995, he pleaded guilty to assaulting his father with a baseball bat. The felony charge, which carried a four-year maximum term, was later reduced to a misdemeanor, and Macchione was given a 270-day suspended sentence.

In reducing the count, a judge ruled that Macchione was making progress through court-ordered counseling. Psychiatrists said Macchione was a paranoid schizophrenic but was taking his antipsychotic medication regularly and posed no threat to his father or others, according to court documents.

Under terms of his three-year probation, Macchione is not allowed to possess a weapon.