LAKEPORT, Calif. – The first witnesses in the trial of two local men alleged to have been responsible for the murder of a 4-year-old boy and the shooting of five others last June took the stand on Wednesday.
Janet Leonor and her great-granddaughter, 18-year-old Ashli Athas, were the first witnesses called by District Attorney Don Anderson in the trial of 21-year-old Paul William Braden and Orlando Joseph Lopez, 24, both of Clearlake Oaks.
Braden and Lopez are on trial for the shooting on June 18, 2011, in Clearlake that claimed the life of 4-year-old Skyler Rapp, and left five others – his mother, Desiree Kirby, her boyfriend, Ross Sparks and his brother, Andrew Sparks, and friends Ian Griffith and Joseph Armijo – wounded.
Before testimony started late Wednesday morning, the court spent an hour and a half rearranging the small Department 1 courtroom to accommodate the two juries – with a total of 35 jurors – who will hear the trial.
The defense and prosecution tables were turned to face the jurors, and half of the audience was blocked off with a partition and set up to seat the rest of the jurors who couldn’t fit into the jury box.
Leonor, who took the stand first, testified about a party held at her 16th Avenue home in Clearlake the day of the shooting.
It was there that Braden and Lopez were reported to have been in the hours before the shooting, and where Braden was allegedly seen with a shotgun, the butt of which he was said to have sawed off in Leonor’s garage.
Athas and her then-boyfriend, Leonardo Lopez – Orlando Lopez’s brother – and their young son lived with Leonor at that time. Several of Athas’ and Leonardo Lopez’s friends reportedly spent the afternoon hanging out, drinking and playing beer pong in the backyard, according to Wednesday’s testimony.
Leonor said she saw four young men go into her garage, among them Orlando Lopez and a tall young bald man, alleged to have been Braden, who at the time reportedly had a shaved head.
She said they were “fooling around at the work table,” and she could see they were standing near a vice, but her car blocked her full view.
The young men had no business being in the garage, so Leonor said she told them to get out of it.
The next day, Leonor went out to the garage and found a hacksaw and another saw lying on the table, not hanging on the peg board where they belonged. Those two saws were presented as exhibits in court, contained in large plastic bags. Leonor identified both.
She also found on the work bench a black bolt – which the prosecution alleges was from the shotgun stock – that had been cut.
Outside on a table in her backyard was found a roll of duct tape that Braden allegedly used to wrap around the sawed off shotgun butt in order to make a pistol grip. Anderson showed Leonor a picture of the table where the duct tape was found by police.
During cross-examination by Lopez’s attorney, Stephen Carter, Leonor said she never saw a weapon, and didn’t know the tall, bald young man she had seen at her home.
Leonor testified that at one point she had had weapons of her own in the home, but by June 2011 she had sold them all.
Athas testified to hearing Braden argue on the phone with Ross Sparks around 3 p.m. or 4 p.m. June 18, allegedly telling Sparks, “Let’s meet up and handle this.”
She said of Braden, “In a sense you could tell he was angry but he was being calm about it.”
According to Athas, a short time after that phone call, Braden and Lopez left, coming back about a half-hour later, with Braden holding a black shotgun wrapped in a sweatshirt.
She said Braden went to the garage along with several male subjects who were at the party – among them several individuals said to belong to a group called the Avenue Boys – with one of the young men then coming out to throw the shotgun butt in a recycling bin.
Athas said Braden spent several minutes popping shells in and out of the shotgun before he allegedly said, “I didn't bring this gun to Clearlake for nothing, let's go use it.”
She also recalled Braden saying, “I’m bored, let's go shoot somebody,” two to three times.
Athas didn’t recall seeing Braden drinking, but said she was sure there was marijuana at the party, although she didn’t remember Braden or Lopez using any.
Leonor started asking people to leave around 9 p.m., and again at 10 p.m. Athas said her grandmother got angry when some people still hadn’t left, so Athas went out to ask them to leave herself.
She said it was at about 10:15 p.m. or 10:30 p.m. that night, as she was looking out her bedroom window, that she saw Braden and Lopez leaving, walking toward what she described as a dark-colored SUV driven by Kevin Stone.
“Paul was holding the sweatshirt with the gun in it,” she said.
Within minutes of the shooting – which occurred shortly before 11 p.m. June 18 – Athas said she received a phone call from her father, asking why he heard Leonardo Lopez’s name over the scanner in connection with the shooting of the little boy. Athas said her then-boyfriend was at home with her.
The next day, when Leonardo Lopez went to the Clearlake Police Department to answer questions from police, his cell phone – which he had left at home – rang, and Athas said she answered it.
The call was from Braden, said Athas.
Although she had never met Skyler Rapp, she said her younger sister and the little boy had a mutual aunt, so she considered him a relation.
When she accused Braden of shooting the little boy, “All he had to say was, ‘I’m sorry, oh my God, I’m sorry.” Athas said she hung up on him.
She admitted during her Wednesday testimony that she originally had lied to police out of fear, because she had heard things about Braden’s family that scared her.
In his cross-examination, Rhoades questioned Athas about her differing testimony in the case’s October preliminary hearing, during which she had said there was no drinking or beer pong at her home on June 18.
She clarified that she had not recalled it at the time, but remembered after she spoke with some of the others who had been there.
Testimony continues Thursday morning.
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