Trial opens for suspect in 2014 ambush killing, earlier shooting in Pasco

When DeShawn I. Anderson shot up a car full of four men because he believed they had laughed at him earlier that night, it started a domino effect of violent acts, a Franklin County prosecutor said Monday.

More than two weeks later, it ended with the death of a 22-year-old Pasco man for no other reason than his gang affiliation, Deputy Prosecutor Maureen Astley told jurors.

“This case is about ego, vengeance and choices,” Astley said of Anderson. “It’s about what can happen when one man decides to take the law into his own hands.”

“The state will show that (Anderson’s) ego caused the first shooting, that his vengeance caused the murder, and that his choices made on those nights … brought him here,” she added.

Anderson, 20, of Finley, is charged in Franklin County Superior Court with first-degree murder, two counts of first-degree illegal gun possession and four counts of first-degree assault.

Opening statements were given Monday in his trial, after a jury was seated Friday afternoon.

Defense attorney Shelley Ajax said there is no physical evidence connecting her client to either shooting in late 2014, and that jurors will “be asked to make a lot of assumptions” when they should not.

Anderson refused to talk to police following his arrest, even when investigators tried to break him by showing him an ultrasound of a baby, Ajax said. The detectives had learned that Anderson’s girlfriend was pregnant with his child.

The next day, he woke up to find his girlfriend and a detective outside his jail cell and felt like his hands were tied, she said.

“The only thing he wanted at that moment was to speak with his girlfriend, and that’s it,” Ajax told the jury. “In lieu, he gave a statement to the police that wasn’t truthful under the pressure he was in and what he was feeling and what he was going through.”

“He asserts to you that the statement he made is not true,” the lawyer added.

Ajax also claims that some prosecution witnesses are testifying against Anderson to avoid their own charges.

“This is a case where there is some jealousy going on, and then we have two individuals who decide they’re going to just cooperate with the state to save their own hide,” she said.

Anderson has been in the Franklin County jail on $1 million bail since Dec. 11, 2014.

Astley told jurors that they will hear testimony that Anderson had an ongoing feud with members of a criminal street gang.

He was at the Crazy Moose Casino late Nov. 18, 2014, when he saw four men walk in. He borrowed a cellphone and asked a friend to pick him up because he believed the men had laughed at him, she said.

There was no confrontation, but Anderson felt disrespected, he let ego take the reins, and he told his friend he “was going to get them,” Astley said.

Less than an hour later, 20 shots were fired at a parked car holding the four men: Carlos Torres-Tapia, Jesus Guillermo Bueno, Alejandro Saldana-Alvarado and Jonathan Alvarado-Gonzalez.

Three victims received serious injuries, while the fourth was grazed by a bullet.

Prosecutors say Anderson was one of two shooters that night. The second shooter has not been disclosed.

The following night, a car with Anderson’s friend Anthony Guerrero, Anderson’s cousin and another man was attacked with gunfire. Guerrero, 20, died hours later from his wounds.

Anderson was distraught by his friend’s death and later took to Twitter to brag about his criminal exploits and that something newsworthy was about to happen. He then went looking for any member of that one gang because he believed they were responsible for the shooting of his friend and his cousin, Astley said.

Anderson and his friends allegedly saw Lorenzo Fernandez Jr. on Dec. 3, 2014, set him up to be at the Stonegate Apartments on Road 68 later that night and ambushed the man as he sat in his car. Eight shots were fired at Fernandez.

“He was a son, a father, a brother and a friend, and those that knew him and loved him called him ‘Richie,’ ” Astley said. “He was targeted for no other reason than he was a (gang member). The defendant was fueled by his ego … because (the gang) took one of his, and he was going to take one of theirs.”

Fernandez tried to get away from his attackers, hitting the gas pedal of his Ford Mustang and leaving a “20-foot burn pattern.” The Ford hit two cars before colliding with a truck.

The first officers on scene felt a faint pulse and got Fernandez out of the car to perform CPR, but he died in the complex parking lot.

“(Anderson’s) vengeance was complete,” Astley said.

Jullissia Ortiz testified that she had gone to the gym about 10 p.m. and noticed an SUV “going pretty slow (in the apartment lot). That’s not normal because everybody goes pretty fast in there.”

Later, when in her downstairs apartment, she heard five shots and ran into her mother’s bedroom where the window was open. She looked out, saw a crashed car and waited several minutes before going outside just in case there was a shooter outside.

Ortiz said she found a neighbor next to the Ford “trying to talk to (Fernandez), trying to get something out of him because he was trying to mumble something.”

She then choked up and had to grab a tissue to wipe her eyes before telling the jury that she just thought Fernandez was unconscious from the car crash.

Sean Driscoll said he was in the lot at the adjacent Navigator Villas when he “heard some pops like gunfire. I thought it was like an exhaust backfire at first. I heard pops and then a vehicle revving up quite a bit simultaneously.”

About five to 10 seconds later, Driscoll said, he saw two men “tumble over the white fence that separates the Navigator Villas from Stonegate.”

He gave a vague description of the men, and said one clearly was holding a pistol while the other appeared to be hiding something in his sweatshirt pocket, but he was not able to pick out the suspects in photo lineups because it was too dark that night.

One man shouted, “They’re coming back around,” and then the two took off running, he said.

Testimony continues May 24 in Courtroom 1 at the Franklin County Courthouse.

This story was originally published May 23, 2016 at 6:07 PM with the headline "Trial opens for suspect in 2014 ambush killing, earlier shooting in Pasco."