SPPD: Guevara receives 12-year sentence for 2016 slaying
January 25, 2017
By Peggy Kelly
Santa Paula News
A Santa Paula man was sentenced Friday to a dozen years in prison for the March 2016 slaying of an Oxnard man.
According to Santa Paula Police Sgt. Cody Madison, Modesto Perez Guevara, 23, of Santa Paula, was sentenced January 20 to 12 years in prison.
Madison said Modesto “is required to serve 85 percent of that time, or 10 years and two months,” before he is eligible for parole.
Modesto pleaded guilty in December to voluntary manslaughter in the stabbing death of 44-year-old Ricardo Garcia of Oxnard.
According to Madison, the March 25 attack occurred in the 100 block of East Ventura Street, where Garcia was reportedly doing work at an apartment unit for his friend, Guevara’s brother.
Officers were summoned to the East Ventura Street apartment complex at approximately 10:20 a.m. for a reported stabbing.
When SPPD Officers arrived at the scene Santa Paula Fire and ambulance personnel were present; a paramedic had already pronounced Garcia dead.
Garcia, who had also been an acquaintance of Modesto Guevara, had been stabbed once in the stomach, a mortal wound.
Said Madison, “Through the investigation it was determined the suspect in the case was Guevara,” whom police later located in a mobile home park in the 400 block of Craig Drive, less than a mile from the scene of the stabbing.
Just four days before the stabbing Guevara had been arrested for felony resisting arrest. When a SPPD Officer responded to the disturbance call, Guevara and his brother were both arrested after they scuffled with the officer, who received minor injuries.
Guevara was out of jail on bail when Garcia was killed.
At a court hearing in November, Guevara initially pleaded not guilty to a charge of homicide which prosecutors later allowed had not been premeditated.
Voluntary manslaughter is defined as the killing of a human being in which the offender had no prior intent to kill and acted during “the heat of passion” under circumstances that would cause an otherwise reasonable person to become emotionally or mentally disturbed.
Madison said as always, “The Santa Paula Police Department would like to thank the Ventura County District Attorney’s Office for their assistance and support.”
