A parolee accused of gunning down a man more than a decade ago for crashing into his SUV on an Indio street unleashed “not one, not two … but 12” shots to kill the victim, a prosecutor said Thursday.
James “Chip” Milton Nathaniel, 39, of Beaumont allegedly killed 35-year-old Apolonio Carranza in 2015.
Nathaniel is charged with first-degree murder, being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm, witness intimidation, spousal abuse and sentence-enhancing gun and great bodily injury allegations.
“He used a semiautomatic firearm, firing not one, not two, not three, but 12 rounds,” Deputy District Attorney Paul Sorensen told jurors during his opening statement at the Larson Justice Center in Indio Thursday. “That’s why we’re here — because the defendant shot Mr. Carranza 12 times.”
Sorensen recalled how Nathaniel and his wife, Ernestia, went to visit a friend at 43077 Kenya Drive shortly after midnight on April 19, 2015, and that not long afterward Carranza arrived at the location.
One of the prosecution’s initial witnesses, Ruby Coleman, testified that Nathaniel was familiar to her because of her relationship with his cousin, but she didn’t know Carranza, whom she said had been at the property earlier in the day for unspecified reasons.
According to the Indio Police Department, witnesses told officers at the time that an argument erupted between Nathaniel and Carranza for reasons not altogether clear.
According to a police arrest warrant declaration, one person said that during the confrontation, Carranza challenged Nathaniel to race him for the “pink slips” to their respective SUVs, then he rammed Nathaniel’s Porsche Cayenne.
The enraged defendant allegedly pulled a handgun and opened fire on the victim as he sat behind the wheel of his Nissan Murano, the affidavit said.
“A barrage of shots” was fired into the Nissan, Sorensen told the jury.
The victim died at the scene.
Nathaniel then allegedly got into his SUV and drove away. Witnesses called 911, and patrol officers arrived within 10 minutes. The defendant’s wife later told investigators he instructed her “not to say anything,” according to the prosecutor. When she questioned him, he pushed her into a wall, Sorensen alleged.
The defendant’s identity was publicized four days after the shooting. He was taken into custody without incident in San Bernardino on May 21, 2015.
“This case is about something that happened 11 years ago. It’s about how Mr. Carranza was gunned down,” Sorensen said.
The defense elected not to make an opening argument Thursday, but to defer statements until the prosecution had rested its case.
The People v. Nathaniel ranks among the county court system’s oldest unresolved murder cases. It has been plagued by repeated delays, attributable to the defendant’s changes in counsel, ongoing requests for dismissals, hearings to access law enforcement officers’ confidential records and some other matters not specified in court records going back to his arrest.
Nathaniel had been released from prison in the early spring of 2014 after completing a sentence stemming from a 2005 attack in which a motorist was shot in Indio, according to court records.
He’s being held in lieu of $1 million bail at the Benoit Detention Center.