Convict Guilty in ’95 Shop Killing

A convict already serving 25 years to life for a carjacking was convicted Wednesday of killing the owner of a Laguna Beach ice cream parlor during a botched holdup in 1995.

Gilberto Corrales Garcia, 32, was also found guilty of two special circumstances -- murder in the course of a burglary and in the course of attempted robbery -- that could bring him the death penalty.

A Superior Court jury in Santa Ana deliberated about two days after the monthlong trial. When the penalty phase of the trial begins Monday, the jury will also be asked to decide whether Garcia should be executed or spend the rest of his life in prison without parole.

“I’m very pleased with the verdict,” said Senior Deputy Dist. Atty. Kevin Haskins. “Obviously, it’s a very serious crime.”

Simindokht Roshdieh, 53, was fatally shot in the throat Feb. 20, 1995, after Garcia entered her downtown Baskin-Robbins shop, pointed a 9-millimeter pistol at her and ordered her to open the cash register. Roshdieh’s husband, Firooz, was shot in the shoulder trying to defend his wife with a broom handle.

The crime capped a spree that began in other cities and included the robbery of another Baskin-Robbins in Tustin that was videotaped. It was the first murder during a robbery in Laguna Beach in nearly 30 years, disturbing the calm in a town where the Roshdiehs were known as hard workers who served customers with a smile.

Garcia was not the first suspect in the investigation, which had been marked for years by dead ends and false leads.

A parolee, Manuel Ramirez Rodriguez, was arrested a month after the shooting. He was identified in lineups and robbery footage by several witnesses, including the victim’s husband. His own aunt called authorities after seeing a segment about the crimes on “America’s Most Wanted.”

Charges against Rodriguez were dropped after he participated in a reenactment of the Tustin robbery and it became clear that his tattoos looked different from those of the man in the videotape of that robbery.

Detectives shifted their focus to Garcia after consulting a database of known gang members’ tattoos and matching his body markings to those of the Tustin ice cream shop robber: three dots below his left eye and the name “Alicia” written in Old English script on his neck.

At the time of his arrest two years ago, Garcia was serving 25 years to life in state prison for a carjacking in Torrance.

Garcia’s estranged wife, Nydessa Whittaker, a convicted drug dealer, was a key government witness during the trial. She testified that she was at the wheel the night in question, and that Garcia accidentally shot a man at the Laguna Beach shop after his hand was slammed in the cash register. She provided other details about the crime spree, describing locations and recalling the balloon she said Garcia brought her after the first robbery, of a Costa Mesa flower shop.

Garcia’s attorney, George Peters, tried to discredit Whittaker by telling the jury that she was testifying in exchange for immunity from prosecution, $5,000 in cash and placement in a witness protection program.

Peters also said there was no physical evidence placing his client at the scene and that the killer could have been any number of male Latinos, including Rodriguez. He pointed out that Firooz Roshdieh, who testified during the trial that he is certain Garcia murdered his wife, had also identified Rodriquez as the killer with equal conviction.

But several other witnesses from other businesses that had been robbed said the man they saw had tattoos similar to Garcia’s, not Rodriguez’s.