Deputy Public Defender William Markov, the attorney for Lara, who had moved from Santa Paula to Oxnard just weeks before the murder, had made a failed pretrial motion to keep his client out of adult court, but due to Lara’s extensive criminal background and gang association, he was ordered to trial as an adult.During his trial, Lara testified in his own behalf, telling the jury he was under the influence of beer, prescription drugs and methamphetamines the night Orozco and Longoria, a Fillmore resident now 22, showed up at the 1300 block Saticoy Street house of Florinda Ruiz. He was outside smoking a cigarette when shots rang out, Lara testified, and then two men ran past him and dropped a gun. Although Lara said he did not recognize the men, he testified that he hid the gun out of gang loyalty.Other testimony noted that Orozco and Longoria became nervous after Lara’s questioning and said they would wait outside; Lara said he was going outside to smoke a cigarette and then gunshots were heard. Lara then tried to get the others to help him hide Orozco’s body. He hid the gun in a closet inside the house.The killing of Orozco was not the first experience the Lara family has had with murder: Isaac Lara’s older brother, Joey Lara, also a gang member, was only 16 when he murdered in the early 1990s on Halloween night, the result of what investigators believed was a gang-related shooting.The gun Isaac Lara used to kill Orozco was found to be the same weapon used in an unsolved Oxnard homicide that occurred earlier in 2000.
Jury finds Lara guilty in November 2000 murder of Joanna Orozco
May 31, 2002
Santa Paula News
In the end, the jury did not believe the testimony of a gang member that others shot a Santa Paula woman to death while a kids’ soccer team played in a nearby park, and on Tuesday a guilty verdict was returned against Isaac Lara, only 17 at the time of the killing.
By Peggy KellySanta Paula TimesIn the end, the jury did not believe the testimony of a gang member that others shot a Santa Paula woman to death while a kids’ soccer team played in a nearby park, and on Tuesday a guilty verdict was returned against Isaac Lara, only 17 at the time of the killing.Joanna Orozco, 21, had never met Lara before the night she and a companion arrived to pick up another friend at a house across the street from Las Piedras Park. And the jury, which deliberated for less than five hours, believed the witnesses’ testimony that Lara asked Orozco and her friend, Shane Longoria, where they were from, a common gang challenge, before he followed them outside and opened fire on Nov. 7, 2000.Lara, a former resident of Santa Paula, was found guilty of murder, attempted murder, shooting at an occupied vehicle and assault with a semi-automatic handgun; he will be sentenced June 25, and faces 70 years to life in prison when he again faces Superior Court Judge Herbert Curtis III.Lara’s three week trial featured a verbal confrontation between the Orozco and Lara families, eye witnesses, gang experts and Santa Paula Police investigators.
