Alleged Driver in Spree Faces Murder Trial

An 18-year-old Camarillo man accused of driving a pack of gang members through Ventura County on a violent and ultimately fatal crime spree must stand trial on murder, robbery and shooting charges, a judge ruled Friday.

Arturo Contreras Jr. is charged in the shooting death of a Moorpark motorist Dec. 3, even though another man, Michael Castro, 20, has confessed to pulling the trigger and already pleaded guilty to second-degree murder.

Municipal Judge Thomas J. Hutchins agreed with prosecutors that enough evidence exists to charge Contreras with the slaying as well.

“He was there, he stopped the car. He helped with the killing,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Matthew J. Hardy III said.

Contreras was also charged with a Somis robbery and a drive-by shooting into a Camarillo home that occurred during the 30-minute spree. Hardy said the drive-by shooting appeared to be racially motivated.

Contreras’ sister once dated an African American man who had lived at the house, Hardy said. Two weeks before the shooting, Contreras used a racial epithet and told the occupants that he was going kill the African American man, Hardy said.

The prosecutor said the intended target had moved out of the house before the shooting, in which no one was injured. Castro also pleaded guilty to firing into an occupied dwelling.

If convicted of all charges, Contreras could receive a sentence of life in prison.

Two other teenagers were arrested with Contreras and Castro shortly after the spree, which ended with the apparently random slaying of 25-year-old Jesus Zamudio Manjarrez. Hardy said the four decided to drive to Moorpark seeking retribution after one of the occupants of the car mentioned that his sister had been raped there months earlier.

They came across Manjarrez, who was stopped in his car at a red light by chance, Hardy said. Contreras stopped the car and Castro jumped out of the back seat and shot Manjarrez once in the head, Hardy said.

Jose Duarte, 17, has been charged with robbery, which prosecutors allege is his “third strike.”

If convicted, Duarte could become the county’s youngest person to be sentenced under the state’s “three strikes” law, which mandates a sentence of 25 years to life for the third serious felony conviction.

A judge ruled earlier that Duarte should stand trial as an adult.

The other teenager, Jose Espinoza, 17, Wednesday pleaded guilty to robbery in juvenile court and faces up to four years in the California Youth Authority.