Months After Killings, Tragedy Is Unresolved

What one veteran detective calls the most brutal murder he has ever seen happened like this:

Yolanda Navarro, 18, is begging for her life on an Eastside street half a mile from her home. Her longtime friend, Richard Rodriguez, has been shot and killed just a few feet from where she lies in a fetal position on the sidewalk. She is pleading so loudly that firefighters inside a nearby fire station hear her whimpering cries: “Please don’t kill me.”

But 6-foot-4 Nathan James Verdugo just keeps coming, police say. After shooting Rodriguez in the leg and in the head, he calmly walks up to Navarro and fires one shotgun blast into her head. Police photos of her body show her left eye bulging--her terror apparent amid the bloody flesh.

This is the story of two innocent college students being chased down and killed by a man they had never seen--a man seeking revenge against the wrong people. It is the story of a house party gone awry and guns in the wrong hands. It is the story of a clean-cut former carpet cleaner, Nathan Verdugo, who three months later is still on the run, phoning in pleas of innocence to police and hiding with the alleged financial support of his father. It is the story of firefighters unable to come to Yolanda Navarro’s rescue because the most threatening weapons they had were flashlights. It is the story of Navarro’s family living in the surrealism of shock, holding a birthday party for her at a cemetery.

“Yolanda and Richard were like the caretakers for their friends,” said Yolanda’s mother, Armida Navarro. “They would make sure everybody had a ride or would not drink and drive.”

It was that caring attitude of looking out for others that turned a night of partying into a night of heartache--heartache that continues with the suspect on the loose.

Despite a $25,000 City Council reward and a listing on the Los Angeles Police Department’s “most wanted” list, 22-year-old Verdugo is nowhere to be found. Twice he has narrowly escaped officers, once leaving a full plate of food on the table and the back door wide open.

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A group of former La Verne College fraternity buddies threw the party last Oct. 22 on Parrish Street in the northeast Los Angeles neighborhood of Glassell Park. Yolanda Navarro and Richard Rodriguez had been invited by a friend of the host. Dozens of young people were standing on the curb, talking and hanging out. One of the guests, Paul Escoto, was leaving the party about 1 a.m. when his car’s side-view mirror scraped a friend of Yolanda Navarro on the leg. Though uninjured, Navarro’s friend became angry and a dispute began.

Another friend of Navarro--one of four girls who had come to the party with her--went back inside seeking retribution, looking for a man she had seen earlier with the car’s driver. According to police, she found Mike Arevalo, a nephew of the young man hosting the party, and tapped him on the shoulder. Then she hit him three times in the face with a beer bottle.

Arevalo, stunned by the unexpected assault, almost lost consciousness. Both he and his family were angry and a heated argument ensued. Police and paramedics were called. Navarro tried to hustle her girlfriends into their cars. Arevalo’s relatives took him to the hospital.

Watching the conflict was a friend of Mike Arevalo, Nathan Verdugo.

Three of Navarro’s girlfriends--one of whom was wearing a skirt and dark blouse that looked much like Navarro’s--had already left when Rodriguez offered Navarro a ride home. They both lived a few miles away in El Sereno, a mostly middle-class Latino Eastside neighborhood touched but not dominated by inner-city crime.

It was at this point, police believe, that Verdugo became caught up in the anger of the party and decided to chase and shoot Navarro and Rodriguez. Detectives remain unclear about the suspect’s motives because he left the party without consulting the family or talking to anyone.

Verdugo, who had lived in El Sereno until moving to Rialto the year before with his family, may have confused Navarro with the girl who hit Arevalo, said Detective Andrew Teague, one of the Hollenbeck Division officers investigating the case.

It was after 2 a.m. when Verdugo’s black Honda CRX caught up with Rodriguez’s maroon Honda Civic as it headed east on Huntington Drive near Monterey Road, police said. Verdugo intentionally sideswiped Rodriguez’s car. Rodriguez stopped the car, and he and Navarro fled on foot, apparently trying to escape Verdugo.

Police gave this description of what happened next:

Verdugo parked behind Rodriguez’s car and gave chase carrying his shotgun, one of two registered in his name. He fired one shot, which hit Rodriguez in the left leg. The black-haired, stocky teen-ager immediately fell, his head landing in a storm drain. Verdugo stood over Rodriguez and fired a shotgun blast into the back of his head.

Reloading, Verdugo chased Navarro, firing two shots but missing each time. The woman was screaming as she ran barefoot through traffic, having left her shoes in the car. Photos would later show her knees badly bruised because of repeated falls.

She fell for the last time about 75 feet from the rear door of the fire station and began pleading for the gunman to spare her. Firefighters awoke to the sound of her cries for help and heard the last gunshot. They refused to discuss the incident, but police confirmed that because no arms are kept at fire stations, there was nothing firefighters could have done. The killer escaped.

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Today, police contend that Verdugo is hiding with the support of most of his family and friends. He has left messages on Police Department telephones saying that he is innocent and that he was set up by gang members who hope to kill him in jail.

Salvador Verdugo, a retired aerospace engineer who said he moved his family from El Sereno to Rialto last year to escape gang threats, said his son is being framed. He said Nathan is surviving on his own with money from a savings account and his ability to work construction.

“If my boy would have done something like that (shooting), I would have taken him to the police station myself,” the father said. “My son is a good kid.” Police said the suspect has no prior arrests.

His family says gang members want to kill Nathan in retaliation against his brother, Paul, who told police that he saw the gang members stripping a car. Police confirm that Verdugo was later robbed and stabbed in April, 1994, and that his family was held at gunpoint months after that at their home by the gang members.

Salvador Verdugo said he watched his son telephone officers from the family home in January, unsuccessfully trying to arrange his surrender. Paul Verdugo says his brother is willing to turn himself in to a law enforcement agency outside Los Angeles County but Hollenbeck detectives refuse to strike a deal. Detective Teague and his partner, Charles Markel, say that is a lie.

“They are harboring him and will continue to do so until he’s captured,” Markel said.

The families of the victims, meanwhile, live in a different reality.

The Navarro family has tried to celebrate Yolanda’s life rather than dwell on the sadness of her death. On what would have been Yolanda’s 19th birthday on New Year’s Day, the family held a birthday party at Resurrection Cemetery. Her friends often visit the grave site, laying flowers and talking to her. The family, which includes three older children, still travels to Yolanda’s favorite place, Disneyland, and has kept her room as she left it, except for a photo collage put together by friends.

“Her boyfriend comes to the house every two weeks to see us,” Armida Navarro said. “He sits in her room just to be with her.”

Navarro, who would have started classes at Pasadena City College the day after she was killed, hoped to enter the school’s nursing program. She had been working at White Memorial Hospital as a volunteer. Her mother, who is a Los Angeles Unified School District transportation official, said reaction to her daughter’s death has been widespread.

“It’s really amazing to us that an 18-year-old could have such an impact on so many people,” she said. “Her friends were always calling her for advice on relationships and other things.”

Richard Rodriguez’s mother, Carmen Evangelista, said her son was “going to be somebody.” He was always well-dressed and well-groomed, she said, a smart kid who had avoided the pull of neighborhood crime and gangs. At his home, Richard is not mentioned. His death remains too painful for the family to discuss.

The shooting, Yolanda Navarro’s mother said, will catch up to the killer. “The biggest hurt that could have been done has already happened to us,” she said, weeping softly. “And every day that goes by and he doesn’t turn himself in, he becomes a lost soul.”