Opinion ID: 1170931
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Subsequent Investigation.

Text: Within five hours after the assault upon Olveda, the police located her car parked in a carport less than a block from defendant's sister's residence where he sometimes stayed. During 1979, Officer Evan (Danny) MacIvor was operating a sting operation in an undercover capacity in San Jose. MacIvor fronted as a businessman who purchased stolen property. On September 26, 1979, defendant contacted MacIvor and sold him a.32 caliber semiautomatic pistol, telling MacIvor that the gun belonged to him. After arranging to meet with defendant again on September 28, MacIvor turned the gun over to the police department crime lab. Joe Vasquez had died from a .32 caliber gunshot wound to the head. Through comparison with the spent .32 caliber bullet casings recovered at both the liquor store and the office in which Olveda was attacked, a criminalist was able to positively identify the gun as the weapon used in the murder of Vasquez and the shootings of Romero, Zamora and Olveda. When MacIvor and defendant met again on September 28, MacIvor told defendant that the gun did not work. Defendant responded that the gun did indeed work and had made a lot of money for him in the last six months. Defendant also told MacIvor to be careful not to get caught with the gun because it had done a murder. When asked what he meant, defendant replied that the gun originally belonged to a friend who had killed someone with it, and that the friend was now serving time in Soledad prison. When the two next met on October 2, MacIvor secretly recorded their conversation. Defendant told MacIvor that the weapon had been used eight months previously in a murder in Salinas, and that the person responsible was currently serving time for it. [3] MacIvor asked him why he kept the gun for eight or nine months. Defendant replied that the murderer had called him on the phone, told him the gun was in his room, and asked him to get rid of it. Defendant claimed he subsequently picked up the gun, oiled it down, and buried it in his mother's backyard. The gun did not appear to MacIvor to have been oiled or buried in the ground; a criminalist testified he saw no evidence that the gun had recently been buried or oiled down.