Nick Sanchez testified that they were just bored and “being kids.”
The three friends had just left a late show of “Spiderman” at the movie theater in the San Fernando Valley after midnight May 1, 2024, when they decided they weren’t quite ready to call it a night.
Instead, they decided to drive to a grocery store, purchase some eggs and then throw them at cars from a hangout that overlooks the SFV known as “Reseda Point.”
It was a fateful decision that led to tragic consequences, according to a transcript of testimony from Sanchez during a preliminary hearing last week over the murder of his friend, College of the Canyons student Gavin Unzueta.
“At first, I didn’t realize it was gunshots — I just heard loud sounds, so I thought originally they just threw something at our car,” testified Sanchez, one of the three men who had been in the car. “And then Gavin said he got shot. I thought he was joking at first, because he would just joke around like dumb things like that.
“And then he started holding his side. And then he, like, slumped over towards the console.”
The car then sped off, and driver Paul Lopez pulled into the center lanes as Sanchez called 911 about 45 seconds later, Sanchez testified, according to the transcript.
The L.A. County District Attorney’s Office charged Grigor Hovsepyan, one of several drivers targeted by the egg-throwing, with two counts of attempted murder and one count of murder in Unzueta’s death, alleging Hovsepyan caught up to them and fired several shots in retaliation, including one to the chest that killed Unzueta.
Hovsepyan was held to answer after testimony from Sanchez and a Los Angeles Police Department detective supervisor who investigated the shooting.
The shooting
After targeting three cars with eggs, Sanchez, Unzueta and Lopez, who was driving, headed south where they saw their next target, according to the testimony.
Both Sanchez and Lopez threw eggs at the white sedan parked facing them on Braemore Road as they passed, with Sanchez describing on the stand Thursday how he lobbed the eggs from the passenger side of the car, with Unzueta having a more direct angle from the driver’s side.
They didn’t even look back to see if the eggs had hit, Sanchez said, adding that they took off and drove down a side street and parked near Castlebay Lane Charter Elementary School, turning off their lights to avoid detection.
After a few minutes, they thought the coast was clear and started to drive away and found themselves turning back onto the street where they had just hit the white car.
Now someone was definitely inside the car, because as the three passed it, the sedan made a U-turn and followed them, he testified.
Spooked, they turned onto Reseda Boulevard, but now noticed the white sedan was accelerating, so then Lopez did, too, Sanchez testified. By the time the white sedan had caught up to them, slightly passing them on the right side, Sanchez said all he could remember was ducking as soon as the car pulled up, because he didn’t want anyone in the white car to be able to identify him.
And then he heard loud noises, he said.
Detective Alfonso Arguelles, a 26-year veteran of the LAPD, later testified that he collected four 9mm shell casings from the location of the shooting on Reseda Boulevard,
The detective also testified that Hovsepyan told a cellmate — who, in reality, was an undercover officer — that his girlfriend, identified as Ms. Sosa in the detective’s testimony, was in the car with him at the time of the shooting and “turned on” by the violence.
He also told the undercover officer that he took the gun apart and held onto the handle, which has the serial number, but got rid of the barrel and the slide, which the detective said would make the weapon harder to identify as forensic evidence of a crime.
Judge Hayden Zacky held Hovsepyan to answer to all three charges, including the special circumstances alleging the use of a gun and the infliction of death or significant injury.
Zacky said the special circumstances mean the L.A. County District Attorney’s Office also will have to make a decision on whether it’s going to seek the death penalty or life without the possibility of parole.
Hovsepyan is due back in court May 28 to formally answer the charges.
