Suspect’s Wife Tells Jury About Deputy’s Killing

The wife of accused killer Michael Johnson exchanged only brief words with Deputy Peter Aguirre Jr. on the evening of July 17, 1996, when he responded to a domestic dispute at her Meiners Oaks home.

But those words hung heavy in Ventura County Superior Court on Wednesday, as the reluctant witness testified about the deadly situation Aguirre walked into moments after they spoke.

“Everything happened so fast; I was coming out and he was coming in,” the spouse testified, explaining to the jury that she had warned Aguirre that her husband was inside the house and was carrying two guns.

“He came in and then I stayed there by the door,” she continued, “and then the shots rang.”

As she spoke, the fallen officer’s widow and relatives listened tearfully and were at times consoled by Aguirre’s colleagues and top-ranking officers from the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department.

Aguirre was shot four times by Johnson, a five-time felon who prosecutors say deliberately gunned down the 26-year-old deputy to avoid going back to prison.

Defense attorneys admit Johnson shot Aguirre, but have told jurors that the killing was not premeditated.

The 50-year-old defendant, a Ventura resident, is facing charges of murder and attempted murder for shooting Aguirre and firing his guns at another officer. He could face the death penalty if convicted.

For five hours, Johnson’s wife testified Wednesday about the events leading to the deadly shooting and reluctantly answered questions pertaining to two other charges in the case--kidnapping and spousal rape.

The wife, whose name is being withheld by The Times because of the rape charge, told the jury that her husband came to her workplace about 2:45 that afternoon carrying two guns and acting “crazy.”

Johnson demanded she go with him to Wisconsin, she said. She told the jury that he planned to rob a bank in Ojai on the way for money, and threatened to kill her if she didn’t go.

“He was going to kill me and kill himself,” she testified.

At one point, she tried to persuade Johnson to give her the guns, but he refused and became angry, she said. Eventually, she said, she decided to go with him because she was afraid he might hurt someone else.

But she repeatedly testified that she was not in fear for her own life.

“I am not fearful of anyone,” she asserted.

Before she left with Johnson, she called her then-15-year-old daughter on the telephone to warn her to get out of their house, she said.

“I told her she had to leave, that there was no time to discuss it,” she testified.

“Did you feel at that time that you could walk away from Mr. Johnson?” Deputy Dist. Atty. Maeve Fox asked.

“No,” she said.

The spouse told jurors that she left work with Johnson in his car and went to her house.

“He was in his own drama and no one was going to take him out of it,” she said, speaking in Spanish translated by a court interpreter.

When they reached the house, she asked her nephews who were visiting there to leave immediately. She and Johnson then also left the house and drove to a remote location by a stream off California 33 where they had engaged in sex in the past, she testified.

The couple were married in 1985 so the wife could gain legal residency but did not have a sexual relationship until last year, according to earlier court testimony.

Earlier this week, the wife testified that three days before the shooting, she and Johnson went to the spot by the stream to have sex, but that he became angry when she acknowledged having been to the location with another lover in the past.

It was to this same location that she and Johnson went on the day of the shooting, and where prosecutors allege that a rape occurred.

But the spouse testified that she and Johnson never had sex that day because he was unable to get an erection. She also said that she was willing to have sex, even though he was holding two guns at the time.

Those statements, however, were directly challenged by the prosecutor, who read from transcripts of the wife’s prior testimony before the grand jury and from a police interview in which she told authorities they had consensual sex.

Fox then asked the wife what happened when they returned to the house in Meiners Oaks.

The spouse said that she wanted to distract Johnson by persuading him to take a shower, and that he insisted she get in with him.

“I just wanted to keep him busy,” she said, noting that he took the guns into the shower. The spouse said that while they were in the shower her daughter called, and she told the girl to contact police. She told her daughter to warn them that Johnson was armed.

When a police dispatcher called the house to ask if she was all right, the wife testified that she told the dispatcher that she couldn’t talk because she didn’t want Johnson to hear.

After getting back in the shower, the wife said, she heard a knock at the door and went to answer it while wearing a towel.

“Did you know it was the police knocking?” Fox asked her.

“Yes,” she responded.

Fox then showed a photograph of Aguirre to the witness and she identified him as the deputy who stepped inside the house after she answered the door. She said Aguirre asked her where Johnson was, and she told him “inside” while gesturing with her hand. Moments later, three or four gunshots rang out while she was standing on the front porch, she testified.

During her court appearance Wednesday, the wife continued to balk at many of the prosecutor’s questions while lashing out at lines of inquiry that she found inappropriate.

She called a detective “stupid” and accused the judge at one point of intentionally deceiving the jury by meeting with the lawyers in a sidebar conference.

“Why is it you don’t want them to know the truth?” she interrupted, at which point Judge Steven Z. Perren snapped back at her.

“I would be more than happy to discuss that with you at a later date,” he said, and turned to the court interpreter.

“She is to stop speaking,” he said.

Before uttering a word of testimony Wednesday morning, the spouse asked Perren if she could make a statement to the courtroom, then proceeded to criticize the media, in front of the jury, for its coverage of the case.

“I want to say something to the reporters,” she said. “I don’t want to say anything bad, I just want to tell them to go to hell and tell them they are damn jerks.”