L.A. County Superior Court Judge David Stuart held two defendants to answer in a June 2024 murder outside Valencia Liquor in Newhall.
Omar Garcia Ramirez and Jose Corona Duarte are both facing a murder charge in an amended complaint filed in the shooting death of 31-year-old Fernando Bernabe, of Newhall.
Ramirez is believed to be the footage, which prosecutors based on footage detectives gathered from the area surrounding the shooting.
A sheriff’s detective testified about the conversation he had with the hysterical brother of the victim, who received a call from Bernabe shortly before he was declared dead in the store’s parking lot, according to a transcript from the March 18 preliminary hearing in San Fernando.
At a preliminary hearing, the presiding judge hears the prosecution’s case, any affirmative defense, and then determines whether there’s enough potential evidence to prove guilt at a trial.
The liquor store owner testified that on the night of the shooting, he heard a pair of gunshots and then saw two men running across his parking lot in the 22900 block of Lyons Avenue.
Homicide detectives previously identified one of the suspects as a gang member, but family members of Fernando Bernabe, 31, of Newhall, said the victim was not affiliated. He had little criminal history beyond a misdemeanor arrest in March 2023.
Stuart allowed testimony from a Santa Clarita Valley Sheriff’s Station deputy who responded to the scene and spoke to the victim’s brother, who was described as hysterical after receiving a phone call from Bernabe. It “sounded like his brother was involved in a fight,” according to the testimony.
It may have been Bernabe’s last phone call.
Sheriff’s Station detectives then discussed surveillance of the incident from nearby security cameras, which they said showed the confrontation and shooting that happened around 11 p.m. June 16, 2024.
The video, which was not shared publicly, depicts a verbal confrontation that quickly escalates into physical violence and then a shooting.
Garcia Ramirez, who also had a gang alias of “Daffy,” was arrested by an LASD fugitive task force 10 days after the shooting, according to testimony at the hearing. Custody records indicate Corona Duarte, a Valencia barber, was arrested the following month by patrol deputies with the SCV Sheriff’s Station.
Shortly after the presentation of evidence finished at the hearing, Eduardo Rodriguez, Corona’s attorney, filed a motion to dismiss the charges, arguing that a lack of sufficient evidence against his client.
“The video shows my client waiting around, and then when the co-defendant comes, comes from the lower left corner (of the screen), and immediately there is a physical assault on the victim,” Rodriguez said in the transcript. “Then the video shows as the physical assault progressed, that my client joined in. At some point, the co-defendant Mr. Garcia takes out a gun and fires it and kills the victim.”
Rodriguez said the evidence showing those circumstances does not present any evidence of prior knowledge of an intent to commit murder, which is necessary for an “aider-or-abettor theory,” he said. “No one beats someone up to kill him. If the plan was to kill him, then the killing would have happened immediately.”
Stuart was not convinced and dismissed a similar motion from Garcia Ramirez’s attorney, Christopher Darden, a defense attorney well-known for his role in the unsuccessful prosecution of O.J. Simpson for 1994 murder charges in what was called “The Trial of the Century.”
Garcia Ramirez also was held to answer to a charge of being a felon in possession of a handgun, with the defense stipulating his previous conviction in 2020 for a 2019 incident that involved four counts of criminal threats.
Both clients are expected back in May when they are scheduled to be formally arraigned in front of Judge Michael Terrell, who was named the presiding judge for trial.
Both suspects are being held without bail on the murder charge at Men’s Central Jail in Downtown Los Angeles.
