Opinion ID: 1801857
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Homicide on Sunday Morning

Text: The next morning, Sunday, February 12, 2006, Carlos, his brother Jose, and a friend, Santos, walked past the Sanchez residence on Paso Real looking for Carlos's eyeglasses. They saw defendant, codefendants Avendano and Lopez, and others in the front yard, and heard one of the men, possibly defendant, make threatening remarks as they walked by. A white car was parked in the Sanchez driveway. Carlos and the others kept walking past the house. Carlos then used his cell phone to call Mark, who, together with his friend Ruben, was going to meet up with Carlos and the others on foot. Carlos told Mark not to walk down Paso Real because defendant and his companions had been seen on the street and were looking for him. Carlos agreed they would meet Mark and Ruben on Desire Street, a private street adjacent to Paso Real. Meanwhile, defendant drove alone to a nearby liquor store to buy cigars. En route he saw Mark, whom he thought was Ronnie. Upon returning to the Sanchez residence, defendant told Avendano and Lopez to get into his car, and the three began driving around looking for Ronnie. Carlos and his companions took a shortcut or path through the grounds of a nursery as they headed to meet Mark and Ruben on Desire Street. While walking down the path they saw defendant drive past them and turn onto Desire. Carlos and his companions ran back down the path. Carlos then tried calling Mark again several times to warn him to avoid Desire Street. He got no answer. When they emerged from the path, Carlos's group saw defendant's car stopped on Desire Street with all of its doors open. They saw defendant and one of his companions jumping over a fence and heading back to the car. Defendant was holding two bats, or a bat and another long object, which he threw into the car. Defendant and his companions seemed nervous as they jumped into the car and left the scene. Carlos then received a call on his cell phone from Ronnie, who said that his brother Mark was dying. Ruben testified that despite his and Mark's best efforts to avoid defendant, he, Avendano and Lopez spotted them, sped toward them in the white car as if trying to run them down, then abruptly stopped the car in the middle of the street, jumped out and began chasing them. Ruben explained that after Mark had received the cell phone call from Carlos, he had retrieved the silver and blue aluminum bat for protection. Ruben heard defendant say, Come on, let's go, let's get these motherfuckers. Mark and Ruben ran for a chain link fence. Mark jumped the fence first; Ruben tried to jump over it but his hands and sweater got caught on the fence. He managed to roll over the fence and saw Mark, who had kept running. Ruben thought he saw Mark drop his bat as he jumped over the fence. Defendant and his codefendants also jumped over the fence; defendant and Avendano chased Mark while Lopez chased Ruben. Mark was running ahead of Ruben as they split up. Ruben ran to a nearby shed for cover and soon heard voices nearby, thumping sounds, then running and yelling and car doors slamming as defendant and his companions drove off. When Ruben and the others found Mark, he was facedown on the ground, bleeding badly with his breathing labored. His front upper teeth were broken off, as if he had been hit hard in the mouth. They saw Mark's brains hanging out of his head andhe didn't look right, and they could tell he was dying. An autopsy revealed that Mark sustained at least four blows to the head and three more to other areas of his body. In one area of his head, the force of a blow had shattered his skull into multiple small fragments. The cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head. No weapons were found in the backyard near where Mark was found lying. Mark's aluminum bat was later recovered from a storm drain a short distance away. DNA analysis of blood samples taken from the bat matched defendant's and Mark's DNA profiles. Defendant's blood was found on the handle of the bat; the victim's blood was found on the barrel or upper portion of the bat. Christine Lopez was standing outside her home on Honore Street on the Sunday morning in question when she saw a white car carrying three men that she did not know drive by. Christine recalled that the car was moving fast and the men appeared to be laughing or joking loudly. As the car drove past her, she thought she saw the men throw something out of the car against the curb, and she heard a metallic noise. The storm drain from which the bat was recovered is in front of Christine's house. She also heard one of the men say they had lit him up, or words to that effect. Christine identified defendant and Avendano as two of the three men she had seen in the white car as it drove by.