A 31-year-old man allegedly involved in the fatal shooting of a man in his RV near Anaheim nearly six years ago as part of a robbery-revenge plot was charged with the killing the same day the gunman was convicted, according to court records obtained Tuesday.
Rey Jesus Najera was charged Monday with murder and two counts of assault with a firearm in the May 14, 2019, killing of 28-year-old Eli Gamaliel Victoriano-Che in an unincorporated area bordering Anaheim. Najera was booked into Orange County Jail on Saturday after he was arrested in Huntington Beach on suspicion of shoplifting.
Co-defendant 34-year-old Ricardo Martin Campos was convicted Monday of first-degree murder with a sentencing enhancement for discharge of a gun causing death. He was the gunman who killed the victim, according to Senior Deputy District Attorney Nick Thomo.
Najera is accused of assaulting Victoriano-Che and Ricardo Aranagale, according to the criminal complaint. He was also accused of arming himself with a metal pipe in the attack on Victoriano-Che.
The trouble started for the victim when he got into a conflict with Johanna Cecilia Leon-Pateyro, who pleaded guilty in August 2020 to voluntary manslaughter and was sentenced to 11 years in prison.
Victoriano-Che was at a Motel 6 in Garden Grove with Leon-Pateyro when they got into an argument over his “unwanted sexual advances towards her,” Thomo said in Campos’ trial.
Leon-Pateyro tried to get Victoriano-Che kicked out, which led to the police being called and Victoriano-Che going home to his RV, which was parked at Dale Street and Augusta Drive in an unincorporated area bordering Anaheim, Thomo said.
Leon-Pateyro was enraged that police had been called because she had methamphetamine on her, so she called Campos to join her with some other friends to rob Victoriano-Che, Thomo said.
“It’s this desire for retaliation that this whole plan begins,” Thomo said.
One of two other men in the RV opened the door when the group arrived and refused to let them in until he was threatened at gunpoint to step aside, Thomo said.
Campos shot the victim in the head and then fled to Texas, where he was arrested in 2022 and brought back to Orange County to face charges.
Leon-Pateyro demanded money from the victim before the shooting, Thomo argued. Victoriano-Che appeared to have been trying to comply with the demand before he was shot, saying he had to go get the cash in his car, Thomo said.
“This defendant shot him dead,” Thomo told jurors.
After the shooting, Campos ran to the getaway car and told one of the members of the crew, Daniel Flores, to speed off, and they left the rest of the crew behind, Thomo said, “because (Flores) was scared of the defendant.”
The victim “was viewed as a rat, a snitch,” Thomo said of the motivation to attack him.
Leon-Pateyro had sent a message that night saying, “I’m going to get my homies to kill this fool,” Thomo said.
Campos “racked” the gun outside the RV, Thomo said. And the defendant told Leon-Pateyro to take the victim’s phone so he couldn’t call 911, he added.