Santa Paula : Trial Opens in Fatal Shooting at Park

A Santa Paula man shot his cousin in the face, then chased another cousin around a crowded park before shooting him in the eye, a prosecutor told a Ventura County Superior Court jury on Tuesday.

After shooting Javier Tellez Garcia in the back and stomach in Santa Paula’s Teague Park two years ago, defendant Arturo M. Tellez, 26, “walks right up to him and shoots him in the eye,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Carol J. Nelson said in her opening statement.

Tellez and his brother, Jesus Tellez, are accused of shooting their cousins, Javier Tellez Garcia and Jose Tellez Vasquez, on a warm Sunday afternoon in June, 1991, after a long-running feud between different branches of the Tellez family. Garcia died and Vasquez suffered serious injuries.

The Tellez brothers disappeared after the shootings. Jesus Tellez was arrested in Texas a year later and Arturo Tellez was apprehended earlier this year in Denver.

Jesus Tellez was convicted of first-degree murder in January and was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison for his part in the crime. But Nelson contends that it was Arturo Tellez who fired the 9-millimeter pistol and his brother drove the getaway car. Arturo Tellez has been charged with murder and attempted murder.

Defense attorney Joseph H. Lax, who declined to comment on the case outside court Tuesday, reserved his statement to the jury until he begins the defense phase of the trial.

Judge Charles R. McGrath is presiding over the trial, which is expected to last several weeks.