VAN NUYS : Man Pleads Guilty to Manslaughter Charge

The fourth person involved in the bungled burglary of a convenience store that led to the fatal shooting of a Woodland Hills good Samaritan pleaded guilty Thursday to voluntary manslaughter.

Juan P. Hernandez, 20, of Reseda is expected to receive a 12-year prison sentence at a Nov. 5 hearing, Deputy Dist. Atty. Shellie Samuels said.

Hernandez was driving the intended getaway car April 12, 1992, when three friends entered a 7-Eleven store near Burbank Boulevard and White Oak Avenue in Encino with plans to steal beer. When the three left the store with beer under their arms, Christopher Lee Brown, 24, gave chase.

As he caught up with two of the teen-agers, Brown was shot by a 14-year-old boy, now serving a term in the California Youth Authority after being convicted in juvenile court of murder.

Hernandez “drove them to steal beer,” Samuels said, “and he had no way to know” there would be a killing.

Donna and Dennis Brown said their son aspired to be a police officer, and this helps explain, they said, why he chased the thieves. He was honored posthumously with a district attorney’s Courageous Citizen award.

Jose Manuel Murillo, 19, the Van Nuys gang member who supplied the gun, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole after being convicted of first-degree murder in Brown’s slaying.

The third youth, a 16-year-old girl, testified against Murillo and was allowed to plead guilty to burglary in a deal where she did not serve any time in custody.