D.A.’s Yielding on Death Penalty Could Encourage Extradition in Murder Case

A year and a half ago, as detectives tell the story, a man obsessed with his ex-girlfriend stormed into the home of a family he didn’t know and began shooting at point-blank range. Among the four people he killed that night in Rosemead was a 14-year-old boy whom he hunted down on the sidewalk and shot in the head in front of the boy’s pleading mother.

The suspect then fled to Mexico, where he has remained free.

Mexico will not extradite suspects who face the death penalty here, and then-Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti would not seek any lesser sentence. Garcetti said it would have set a bad precedent to let criminals avoid the death sentence by fleeing to Mexico.

“I can see this guy hanging out at a bar drinking tequila, hanging out with his relatives,” said Eddie Corletto, whose sister was shot and nephew was killed. “That policy, it gives a criminal a two-hour drive to freedom.”

But now Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley has decided to make a change. Instead of asking for capital punishment, he will seek life sentences when the suspect has fled to a country that refuses extradition in death penalty cases. That has provided hope to a family that wants the suspect, Evelio Rivera Zacarias, returned to the United States for trial.

Police say Zacarias, 41, was jealous because his ex-girlfriend, the mother of his two children, was dating a man named Jaime Pacheco, 48. On Aug. 9, 1999, Zacarias allegedly followed the couple to the home of Pacheco’s brother, Oscar Pacheco, where he waited outside and then attacked, officials said.

“It’s something that you can’t get out of your mind, how he entered,” said Marta Pacheco, Oscar’s wife, who was wounded. “After that moment, everything changed forever.”

Killed were Jaime, Oscar and his son Andy, 14, and Victor Flores, 49, Jaime’s brother-in-law. Also wounded was 17-year-old Wilbur Pacheco.

The scene plays over and over in Marta’s head.

According to reports, it started as the family was watching television and playing Nintendo. About 8 p.m., a man stepped quietly through the unlocked front door, holding a gun and a red gas container, which he may have planned to use as a ruse to get inside. He dropped the container and turned to Wilbur, who was sitting on the couch. He asked where Jaime was. Wilbur paused, and the man put the pistol to the boy’s mouth and fired.

The man turned to Andy, who was playing video games, and shot him in the chest. Family members in another room thought balloons were popping.

The shooter then marched into a bedroom and confronted Jaime Pacheco and Victor Flores, who begged to be spared because he was a father. Victor’s wife, Elsa, 40, cowered in the closet with their children. The intruder fatally shot both men in the head as the others listened.

Boy Killed While Mother Watched

The shooter then killed Oscar, firing through the cell phone he was using to call for help, family members said. The gunman shot Marta, Andy’s mother, in the torso. Jaime’s girlfriend, the alleged shooter’s former companion, watched helplessly, the family said.

Wounded but still alive, Andy and Marta escaped the home, where the boy collapsed on the sidewalk in front of a neighbor’s house, gasping for air.

The intruder grabbed Elsa Flores from the closet, put the gun to her head, and led her to his car. As he walked outside, he stopped at Andy lying on the sidewalk, kicked him and muttered: “This dog is still alive?” according to the family. He shot the boy dead as his mother watched from the neighbor’s porch.

The killer then drove with Elsa Flores around the San Gabriel Valley. He allegedly raped her. Then he allegedly picked up a cousin, who drove him to Mexico. He left Elsa in a field.

Since the killings, the family has scattered and mostly comes together to visit the cemetery. And they work toward their all-consuming goal: seeing Zacarias face trial.

They have urged the district attorney’s office to drop the death penalty. They drafted local politicians for support. They tried to bring more media attention to their cause and begged sheriff’s investigators for more information about the case.

Detectives said they would pass the case to Mexican authorities so the alleged killer could be tried on murder charges there. But the family said it took more than a year for the department to translate the court papers into Spanish, and they still have not heard whether Mexican officials will prosecute Zacarias. The last solid information they heard from the Sheriff’s Department was that Zacarias was “living a normal and unfettered life” at his family’s ranch in Zacatecas, Mexico.

The detective working the case, Frank Gonzales, did not return calls to The Times.

As public outrage faded, the family knew they were losing what little leverage they had. Their tragedy was already vastly overshadowed by the North Valley Jewish Community Center shooting in Granada Hills, which happened just hours after the quadruple homicide in Rosemead.

In ways, because they are Latinos, the Pachecos say they feel that they have been written off as cholos. A television show, they said, showed the men in ways that implied they were thuggish. In fact they are a religious immigrant family from El Salvador who were climbing the economic ladder. This was not a gang shooting, they emphasize. Oscar was about to buy a four-bedroom house in West Covina. His son Andy was a top student and athlete, known for befriending both popular and lonely students at his middle school.

Family member Corletto thinks of what happened whenever he drives by the small yellow house on Walnut Grove Avenue. It’s like the house is a “play button,” he says, with a gruesome video that ends when he walks into the home a week after the shooting, gets hit by the stench of death, and spends the day mopping up his family’s blood.

Would Settle for Capture

And he thinks of Zacarias on his ranch in Mexico, whether or not the suspect ever was or is still living there.

All the survivors have been in therapy. The three breadwinners--Oscar, Jaime and Victor--are dead. Wilbur, who recovered from his face wound, was discouraged from returning to his high school because officials feared retaliation, the family said. His grades have plummeted.

Corletto wants nothing more than to see the killer die, but would settle to see him captured.

“I go to Andy’s grave and put flowers there and say, ‘No matter how long it takes, this guy is not going to stay free in Mexico,’ ” he said.