Gun Linked to Store Shooting

While searching the motel room of a suspected drug dealer in April, Ventura police officers found a .40-caliber semiautomatic handgun tucked in a sock and hidden above the closet ceiling tiles.

It was the same type of gun used the day before during a deadly shooting at a neighborhood market in west Ventura. Crime lab tests later revealed it was one of two weapons fired at the scene, linking 32-year-old Richard Geise to the slaying.

That was among the testimony presented in Ventura County Superior Court on Tuesday during Geise’s preliminary hearing on charges of murder, attempted murder, robbery and conspiracy.

Geise of Ojai is accused of participating in an April 6 attempted robbery at Central Market on Ventura Avenue in which three grocery workers were shot, one fatally. He could face the death penalty if convicted.

Witnesses testified Tuesday that two armed robbers wearing gas masks stormed into the market about 1 p.m. and demanded money.

Brothers Balbir and Mohan Singh, who were working behind the counter, testified that the robbers opened fire before they had a chance to respond, killing co-worker Alejandro Alvarez.

“It happened so quickly,” said Balbir Singh, who was shot in the hand and forearm.

Neither Man Could Describe the Shooters

The brothers testified they did not hear any loud shots and didn’t immediately realize they’d been hit by bullets. The shooting happened within seconds, they said.

Neither one could provide a clear description of the robbers.

“We were talking all together and these two guys come in from the front door,” Mohan Singh said. “They didn’t give us a chance to see anything.”

Alvarez, 35, staggered out the front door of the market and collapsed as the gunmen drove away in what witnesses described as a gray car. He died from a single gunshot wound to the chest.

Witness Christina Hodge testified that she heard five gunshots as she and her husband were stopped at a red light about 50 feet from the market.

Hodge said she saw a gray car parked outside, with its doors open. She observed two men jump into the vehicle and speed away after the gunshots, and she wrote down the license plate number.

Prosecutors contend that those robbers were Geise and his 25-year-old cousin, Alfonso Delgado.

Geise was arrested a day after the Central Market shooting when his motel room was searched. Ventura police officers were executing an unrelated search warrant in a narcotics case when they found the gun.

A month later, Delgado was shot and killed by police after a five-hour standoff at his grandmother’s house in Ventura. The officers were trying to arrest him in connection with the slaying when Delgado armed himself with an assault rifle and tried to flee, authorities said.

New Search Warrant Issued

Sgt. Glen Utter testified that authorities immediately stopped their drug search when they found the weapon, and obtained a new warrant to search for evidence possibly tied to the shooting.

Authorities had recovered four .45-caliber shell casings from the crime scene and one .40-caliber shell casing, which was matched to the gun found in Geise’s motel room, Utter testified.

Ventura police also seized 82 grams of methamphetamine, ammunition, leather gloves and a bulletproof vest from the Seaward Inn room.

Geise faces a separate count of robbery in the April 5 holdup of a Domino’s Pizza deliveryman. But that deliveryman could not identify Geise in court Tuesday.

Testimony is scheduled to resume this morning.