Murder suspect in court for prelim
A 17-year-old boy from Jamestown was shot and killed with a gun fired from outside of the passenger side window of a vehicle he was seated in, officers with the Sonora Police Department testified on Monday during a preliminary hearing for the Tuolumne man accused of murdering him.
Sonora Police Officer Ashley Brandow testified Monday morning that she interviewed the driver of a Toyota pickup who was seated beside deceased victim, Eric Aguiar, at the time the shooting just hours after it occurred on Sept. 16.
The driver told Brandow that seconds after he sped away from Sonora High School following a barrage of gunfire, he turned toward Aguiar and saw him clutching his bloodstained chest.
“He asked Eric if he was OK and if he got shot. Eric just groaned,” Brandow said.
The defendant, Joshua Rodriguez, 20 was dressed in a red Tuolumne County Jail jumpsuit and surgical mask beside his Modestobased attorney, Martin Baker, for the duration of the hearing. He occasionally leaned over Baker’s shoulder and appeared to whisper.
Twelve people, many of whom were Aguiar’s immediate family members, sat in court during the hearing, with some crying and leaving the room during the testimony.
Rodriguez is charged with one count of murder in the death of Aguiar, three counts of attempted murder for three separate individuals who were allegedly fired on during the incident, and one count of threatening a witness. All five charges carry firearm enhancements.
Acting District Attorney Eric Hovatter, who is prosecuting the case, was joined by a Tuolumne County Sheriff’s Office detective in the courtroom who was designated as the lead investigating officer.
Brandow testified she was notified of the shooting about 12:30 a.m. and arrived there after 1 a.m. Parked in the lot and beside Aguiar’s friends seated outside were a Toyota pickup and a Dodge Ram, which had sustained bullet holes on the outside.
The Toyota had a shattered passenger door window and two bullets in the passenger-side door. Inside was one bullet exit hole on the inside and bloodstains, Brandow said.
On the Dodge, the front passenger tire was flat and a bullet hole in the passenger-side door and the front passenger quarter panel. Brandow said another officer had pulled a bullet out of the door.
The shooting and the subsequent identification of Rodriguez as the primary suspect was reconstructed, the officers said, through witness statements and surveillance footage.
Brandow interviewed the witnesses at the Tuolumne County Sheriff’s Office after 2 a.m., hours after the shooting.
The teen witnesses in the case were identified by their first name and last initial.
That night, they ate dinner at Aguiar’s house and played video games. They left and joined another pair of friends who followed behind them in the Dodge to the Sonora High School parking lot.
When they were there, they parked 20 to 30 feet away from a “blacked out” SUV, Brandow said the teen told her. He said four people left the SUV, a black Ford Ecosport.
Brandow testified she was told that one of the people who got out of the SUV was who Aguiar previously had identified as the main instigator of the fight, Brodie Sheffield, who took his shirt off and approached the car.
Another person who exited the SUV went by “Kiko,” or Francisco Rico, a Sonora man previously convicted of assault and other charges, Brandow testified.
The driver told Brandow that Rodriguez, who went by the alias “Grumps,” approached the passenger-side window while “talking ghetto.” He said he heard Rodriguez say, “Who’s Eric? Who’s Eric?” and another person responded, “That’s Eric,” before the shots were fired.
The driver and passenger in the Dodge corroborated descriptions of the SUV occupants, Brandow said.
The driver saw what appeared to be a firearm and ducked down when Rodriguez hit Aguiar through the window. He heard two shots while his head was down, heard the passenger window shatter and drove away fast. The witnesses heard more gunshots as they drove off, Brandow said, and one smelled gunpowder.
The driver told Brandow he went immediately to the hospital, carried Aguiar inside and yelled for help, she said.
The Dodge was followed close behind by the SUV, Brandow said. But when the Dodge turned onto Bradford Street toward Stockton Road, the SUV turned left onto Jackson Street.
The day after the shooting, the driver of the Toyota met Brandow for a second interview and said a bullet may have grazed his knee during the shooting.
He said a dispute between Aguiar and Sheffield had emerged the day of the shooting, when Aguiar posted a laughing face on a post featured on the social media app Snapchat. The driver told Brandow that Sheffield called Aguiar “40 times that night” and said he sounded intoxicated when they planned to meet at the Sonora High School parking lot and fight.
It was during that second conversation that Brandow first heard about Rodriguez by name. She was later able to determine he has a tattoo on his arm and lived with someone who claimed to be a member of a gang. When she requested jail booking photos for Rodriguez from a previous case in Stanislaus County, she learned he previously had a weapons charge.
Brandow was also able to track down the registered owner of the SUV, who said the occupants were at a party earlier in the night at the Quail Hollow Apartments in Sonora.
Brandow said the owner of the SUV heard Rodriguez bragging about a “piece with a full clip” at the party.
Baker noted with Brandow that the driver of the Toyota told her in their first interview that Aguiar did not have any problems with anyone, though he reversed that statement in the second interview when he explained the origin of the fight.
Hovatter also followed up on the questioning by noting the vehicles were being watched by officers at the hospital and were later searched, but there was no mention of firearms being possessed by Aguiar or his friends.
Sgt. Chris Johnson collected surveillance footage from the area surrounding Sonora High School, which showed each vehicle enter the parking lot where the shooting occurred.
Using a ruler, he pointed out small lit characters, one of which he identified as the shooting suspect, and bright flashes that indicated gunshots.
The SUV arrived in the lot at 11:36 p.m., and the two victim vehicles arrived at 11:43 p.m., according to a time stamp on one of the videos. Between one and two minutes later, all the vehicles sped out of the parking lot.
An anonymous witness notified the department that a black hat fell out of the SUV as they sped south on North Washington Street, Johnson said, and he collected the hat on top of a bush the day after the shooting.
The preliminary hearing was paused about noon Monday. It is scheduled to resume Tuesday morning at 10:30 a.m. and conclude before the end of the day.
Rodriguez has pleaded not guilty to all charges. He first appeared in Tuolumne County Superior Court in October after he was extradited from Centerville, Utah, where he was arrested on Sept. 26. He remains in custody with a bail amount of $2.5 million.
Prosecutors previously calculated Rodriguez could face a maximum sentence of 144 years to life in prison if convicted on all charges.