Slaying Stuns Residents

A mentally disabled Oxnard man was shot dead and his home firebombed early Saturday in an attack that stunned police and neighbors.

Isaac Hughes, 61, was sleeping in his bed about 4:30 a.m. when someone threw a Molotov cocktail through the kitchen window and fired multiple shots into another window. As relatives struggled to douse the fire in the kitchen, Hughes lay dying in his room from a shoulder wound.

Oxnard police don’t know why Hughes, who had the IQ of a 7-year-old, was targeted.

The victim lived in the 1800 block of Ferrara Way near the city’s Colonia neighborhood. He shared the house with six adult relatives, and none was known to have any criminal involvement, said Sgt. Jim Seitz of the Oxnard Police Department.

“We have to look at any and all the theories we can,” he said. “Why they picked his room we don’t know.”

Seitz said the bullet may have traveled through Hughes’ shoulder into his chest, killing him. An autopsy will be performed today.

Neighbors described Hughes as a gentle, loving man who played guitar and listened to Christian music. He had lived in the home for more than 30 years and was a fixture in the neighborhood.

“He was a very spiritual man; we always called him Brother Isaac,” said Pat Rios, 66, who lives down the street from Hughes and has known the family for years. “They were a good, close-knit family. Isaac would sit outside the house and play his Christian music loud. I can’t see who would want to hurt him.”

Mark Gaston attended Tried Stone Church of God in Christ with Hughes.

“He was a Christian and he minded his own business,” said Gaston, 37. “It’s a senseless, senseless tragedy and one that is hard to understand.”

A woman who said she was a relative of Hughes’ came out of the single-story blue home he lived in to discuss the attack. Other family members declined to comment.

“There were eight bullet holes in the window, we have bullet holes in three parts of our house,” said the woman, who didn’t give her name. “I helped put out the fire but we didn’t know what was going on.”

She didn’t believe race played a role in the attack. Hughes was African American, and the neighborhood is predominantly Latino.

Residents say the neighborhood has been the scene of past gang violence, some of it spilling over from the Colonia district.

One neighbor said Hughes had witnessed a car theft and may have been killed to keep him from talking. Police could not be reached to verify that. Others on the street refused to discuss the incident. Despite the intense police activity Saturday morning, one next-door neighbor said he hadn’t seen or heard anything.

Eddy Rios Jr. was baffled by the attack on Hughes, a man he has known since 1969.

“He had no enemies,” he said, shaking his head in disgust.

Investigators asked that anyone with information call 385-7763 or at 385-7760.