Buried Baseball Bat Linked to Slaying Found

In a development that stunned defense lawyers, Ventura County prosecutors revealed Monday that they have recovered a buried baseball bat allegedly used to beat 18-year-old William Zara to death in 1999.

District attorney investigators dug up the bat in an orchard off Ventura Avenue on Saturday morning, after gang member Chris Gonzales admitted that he and Benny Lopez, one of four defendants in the murder trial, buried it there, prosecutors said in court.

The bat was turned over to the Ventura County crime lab, which is testing for fingerprints and DNA evidence that could shed new light on the case.

The discovery nearly two years after Zara’s death prompted attorneys to ask for a three-day recess in the trial. Superior Court Judge Charles McGrath granted the request.

Zara, a stagehand at Ventura Theatre, died Sept. 26, 1999, after being beaten with a bat and a shovel.

Prosecutors maintain that the defendants, two of whom are gang members, mistakenly thought Zara called police to report a party they were having across the street, and then killed him in retaliation.

Defense attorneys say his death was not a gang attack but the tragic end to a neighborhood brawl.

Lopez, 20, Frank Olvera, 34, Rosana Olvera, 37, and Terry Schell, 33, were indicted by a grand jury in December 1999 and face charges of murder and conspiracy to commit an assault. If convicted, each could face life in prison.

The grand jury also indicted Gonzales, 24, but prosecutors granted him immunity and placed him in a witness-protection program in exchange for his testimony.

Gonzales met Friday with retired FBI agent Jack Trimarco, who was conducting a polygraph exam for the prosecution. During a three-hour videotaped interview, Gonzales revealed the location of the bat.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Maeve Fox called Gonzales’ revelation, which came in the fourth week of testimony, an “exciting development.”

“It was found in exactly the spot where Mr. Gonzales said it was buried,” she said in court Monday.

Defense attorneys plan to spend the next few days watching the taped interview, reading investigators’ reports and preparing motions. They will discuss the matter with McGrath on Thursday; testimony is due to resume Monday.

“We’re kind of in a black hole here,” said Nancy Aronson, attorney for Schell. “It’s hard to tell the court what’s going to happen.”

Victor Salas, who represents Lopez, said in court he needs to watch the tape and possibly view the site where the bat was found to figure out how the new development could affect his client.

Prosecutors say Zara came out of his Ventura apartment with a baseball bat to defend himself, but that Lopez grabbed the bat away and hit him repeatedly in the head.

Gonzales said in earlier interviews that he left the apartment complex on East Warner Street after the confrontation and ran toward Ventura Avenue. But he told Trimarco that he ran the opposite way, toward the orchard, and met up with Lopez.

Gonzales said he used the shovel to dig a hole and Lopez threw the bat in before the pair filled the hole and ran away, Fox said in court. Gonzales told Trimarco he threw the shovel over a fence, where authorities found it after the killing.

After the interview, investigators went with Gonzales to look for the bat but did not find it. They returned to the site Saturday morning with Ventura County sheriff’s deputies and a metal detector and were able to locate the bat.

Gonzales is expected to take the stand as early as next week.

Zara’s mother, Laura Gold, said Monday she was thankful the bat had finally been recovered.

“I’m blown away,” she said from her Arizona home. “That’s a huge relief. Now they can’t hide that part of it. They can’t say it wasn’t used.”

Meanwhile, Lopez’s aunt, Christina Valdivia, said she is nervous about the new evidence and what it could mean for her nephew.

“I’m not sure what his involvement was,” she said outside the courtroom. “We’ll just find out what happens.”