Hearing Begins in Beating Death of Elderly Man

When police found 78-year-old Jack Jamar in his Ventura home last March, he was lying in bed and his face was swollen and covered with blood. He was wearing only a T-shirt and he was incoherent.

“At first I thought he had shot himself because there was so much blood,” said Ventura Police Officer Patrick Sears.

Sears testified Thursday during a preliminary hearing for a 29-year-old Ventura resident accused of beating Jamar, who died two months later from head injuries.

Jamie Cid faces murder and robbery charges, along with a special-circumstance allegation that could make him eligible for the death penalty.

Cid, whom authorities have called a transvestite, was arrested in San Diego on March 28 on suspicion of having attacked Jamar. He later pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Although prosecutors expect the case to go to trial, they acknowledge that it is a challenging one.

“This is a very complicated case,” Senior Deputy Dist. Atty. Maeve Fox said. “That’s why we’re doing this preliminary hearing, so we can . . . make sure we’ve [filed] the correct charges.”

Jamar was a longtime Ventura resident who owned several residential properties in the city. The retiree was discovered severely beaten in his bedroom after a woman found his wallet near Ventura College and tried to return it to him.

The woman testified Thursday that she went to his Varsity Street home on the afternoon of March 10 and found the door wide open. She yelled out to him, but nobody answered. So she left his wallet with a neighbor.

The neighbor called police, who arrived at Jamar’s home about 6 that evening. Sears and another officer, Raymond Lau, testified Thursday that they entered the house and saw a pair of pants lying near the living room. They also saw the cradle of a telephone in the hallway, but the receiver was not attached.

When they entered the back bedroom, they found Jamar in his bloody bed, covered with a blanket. Lau said he yelled to Jamar, who rolled over and sat up. Lau and Sears asked what had happened, but Jamar shook his head and mumbled that he didn’t know.

A longtime friend of Cid’s, Racquel Teran, testified that she and Cid spent the few days prior to the incident hanging out, drinking and doing drugs. They had stayed in a Ventura motel together, where they both injected heroin.

Then Teran left for Arizona, but called home two days later. She had a conversation with Cid, who was there at the time. “He said he was very nervous and very scared,” Teran testified.

Teran said Cid told her that he had met Jamar on Ventura Avenue earlier that day. Cid told her he got a ride to his house, but then got into a fight with Jamar after the elderly man discovered he was a man. Jamar pulled out a gun and Cid hit him, Teran said. She added that he thought he had injured the elderly man.

Teran, who said she had worked as a prostitute, said Jamar had been one of her clients. Teran testified that Cid said he bought a car with Jamar’s money and that he planned to go to Arizona to visit his sister.

Cid is being held in Ventura County Jail in lieu of a $500,000 bond. His preliminary hearing will continue today.