Man Accused Of Killing MoVal Pedestrians; Jury Selection Begins

RIVERSIDE, CA — Jury selection was underway Thursday for the trial of a 25-year-old motorist accused of mowing down two men standing in front of a Moreno Valley restaurant, where they had watched and laughed at the defendant's drunken friend for losing a fight with security guards.

Edgar Ivan Gomez Garcia of Mead Valley allegedly killed 29-year-old Junior Rafael Gonzalez and 39-year-old Pedro Cortes Rodriguez in 2019.

Garcia is charged with two counts of first-degree murder, as well as one count of hit-and-run resulting in death, a special-circumstance allegation of taking multiple lives and sentence-enhancing allegations of using a deadly weapon -- a vehicle -- in the commission of a felony and fleeing the scene.

Riverside County Superior Court Judge Bernard Schwartz ruled on pretrial motions Tuesday and Wednesday at the Riverside Hall of Justice, initiating jury selection on Wednesday afternoon. Prospective jurors returned to the courthouse Thursday for screening as to their availability and fitness to serve.

Opening statements were expected early next week.

Garcia is being held without bail at the Byrd Detention Center.

In the predawn hours of Oct. 18, 2019, the defendant and his then- friend and coworker, identified in court documents only as "Hector," went to the El Rodeo Club & Restaurant at 24805 Alessandro Blvd., where Hector proceeded to become inebriated, according to a trial brief filed by the District Attorney's Office.

He was involved in an unspecified confrontation with a club patron that turned physical, culminating in two security guards hustling him out of the establishment, into the parking lot, where the heavily intoxicated man allegedly continued to remain belligerent, court papers stated.

The security guards deployed pepper spray, and one of them threw a gut punch, causing Hector to keel over in the parking lot, according to the brief. Garcia was walking to his friend's Ford F-150 pickup truck to open the doors when he witnessed the activity, prompting him to challenge the men to a fight but was talked out of it by another employee of the venue, prosecutors said.

Hector was unable to walk unassisted, requiring Garcia to "drag him through the parking lot," at which point the victims, among a group of friends, "laughed and began to take video of Hector being dragged," the brief said.

The defendant, inflamed by the group's behavior, placed his friend in the pickup's passenger seat and got behind the wheel, according to the prosecution. A security surveillance camera mounted on a business across the street recorded the ensuing moments after Garcia started the truck.

"The video captured the truck pull out of a parking stall and drive up the parking aisle toward a store next to El Rodeo," according to the brief. "The truck turned right in front of the store, towards El Rodeo and rapidly accelerated, screeching its tires. The truck came to an abrupt stop before reaching the front of El Rodeo. After a couple of seconds, the driver accelerated into the crowd of people. The footage captured the truck striking the victims and dragging their bodies across the asphalt."

Witnesses immediately dialed 911 on their mobile phones as Garcia allegedly sped away in the Ford.

Junior Gonzalez was pronounced dead at the scene. Rodriguez lingered in a coma for nine days at Riverside University Medical Center before he was taken off of life support.

Sheriff's detectives gathered sufficient evidence from witnesses, as well as the Moreno Valley Citywide Camera System, to identify the pickup and its owner. That led to an interview with Hector several days later, during which he recalled only vague details about the incident, saying he remembered being helped into his pickup and into his son's bed after arriving home, but virtually nothing else -- and Garcia didn't tell him anything, according to court papers.

He told investigators that Garcia had been staying with him, sleeping on his living room couch for weeks, while the two went to work sites in Brea, but a day after the restaurant deaths, the defendant abruptly left and returned to his mother's property in Mead Valley.

In a text message on Oct. 20, 2019, the defendant "encouraged Hector to get rid of the truck and to burn it," the brief said.

Based on the evidence, especially eyewitness identification of Garcia as the alleged driver, a warrant was obtained, and on Oct. 22, 2019, he was arrested without incident in Moreno Valley.

He has no documented prior felony convictions in Riverside County.

—City News Service