Jury calls for Long Beach killer to die

Gang member is one of two men convicted in 2008 murder of five at a homeless camp.

A Los Angeles County jury has called for the death penalty for a gang member who was convicted last month of the 2008 murder of five people at a Long Beach homeless encampment.

The jury deliberated for about two hours before deciding late Monday that David Cruz Ponce, 37, should be sentenced to death, Deputy Dist. Atty. Cynthia Barnes said.

Ponce was scheduled to return to court Nov. 27 for sentencing.

Ponce and co-defendant Max Eliseo Rafael, 31, were found guilty in September of five counts of murder and one count of kidnapping. The jury also found true special circumstance allegations of multiple murders, murder during a kidnapping and murder by an active member of a criminal street gang.

Long Beach police and the Los Angeles County Sheriff ’s Department pieced the case together in a threeyear investigation.

In November 2008, police say, the two gang members were looking for a man who apparently owed them money for drugs. They located him in the encampment near the intersection of the 405 and 710 freeways and opened fire, killing him.

The gunmen then turned to two men and two women at the encampment, authorities say, killing them because they saw the first slaying.

They “were executed ... to ensure there were no witnesses to the crimes,” Long Beach Police Lt. Lloyd Cox said.

The victims were Vanessa Malaepule, 34; her boyfriend, Lorenzo Perez Villacana, 44; Katherine Verdun, 24; Hamid “Sammy” Shraifat, 41; and Frederick Neumeier, 53.

The two defendants talked about the murders in jailhouse conversations that were recorded, the prosecutor said.

Ponce also was convicted of the kidnapping and murder of Tony Bledsoe on March 23, 2009.

Rafael faces up to life in prison without the possibility of parole when he is scheduled to be sentenced Nov. 16.