Jurors found a man guilty of first-degree murder Tuesday in a 2013 shooting outside the Ventura County Fairgrounds on the fair’s opening day.
Erick Estrada, now 35, was also found guilty of two counts of attempted murder and two counts of assault with a deadly weapon for a nonfatal incident that summer, the Ventura County District Attorney’s Office said in a news release. Jurors found true several special allegations that could impact sentencing, including that Estrada carried out the murder while lying in wait.
The case involved a pair of violent crimes in Ventura about six weeks apart.
On June 15, 2013, Estrada and a juvenile codefendant confronted two males near the Ventura Pier. The teen started a fistfight with the victims. While the fight was in progress, Estrada pulled out a handgun and fired multiple shots, prosecutors said. Both victims were shot but survived.
On the night of July 31 that year, inside the fairgrounds on opening day, Estrada and a different teen challenged the victim, Gabriel Gutierrez, 18, to a fight.