Osiris Quintero Munoz appeared in court this afternoon on
charges of murder and assault with a deadly weapon in connection
with the fatal downtown Gilroy stabbing at Rio Nilo last month, but
the judge delayed the hearing because Munoz’s defense attorney was
unavailable.
Osiris Quintero Munoz appeared in court this afternoon on charges of murder and assault with a deadly weapon in connection with the fatal downtown Gilroy stabbing at Rio Nilo last month, but the judge delayed the hearing because Munoz’s defense attorney was unavailable.
San Martin Superior Court Judge Teresa Guerrero-Daley delayed the case until 1:30 p.m. May 6 because Deputy Public Defender Colin Enrique was unable to represent Munoz today.
The Santa Clara County District Attorney has charged Munoz with murder, assault with a deadly weapon and violating the conditions of his probation. Munoz has yet to enter a plea on any of the charges he faces.
When Judge Hector Ramon hears the case next month, Guerrero-Daley said he might recuse himself because Munoz was found guilty of assault with a deadly weapon by the same court in September 2006.
Gilroy police arrested Munoz, 26, the evening of March 25 at 850 El Cerrito Way for violating the conditions of his probation. The arrest was a result of a tip that led undercover GPD officers to 2280 Cochrane Road near Anderson Reservoir in unincorporated Morgan Hill, where Munoz’s former employer lives.
That’s where police located the gold 1998 Chrysler Sebring with a black convertible top and a broken passenger window that matched witnesses descriptions from the murder scene. Using DMV records, police matched the car to Munoz and then arrested him at his crowded Gilroy apartment for illegally possessing a single .380 round. They also recovered clothing and a towel that “appeared to have blood stains” and a 4-inch knife, according to court files and a statement of facts compiled by GPD Detective Stanley Devlin.
In the affidavit, Munoz told police that security guards ejected him and a friend from Rio Nilo, 7474 Monterey St., because his friend was fighting with the two victims: Juan DeDios Arvizu Cabrera, 26, of Castroville – who eventually died outside the bar from multiple stab wounds – and Adan Arvizu Cabrera, 23, of Salinas, who suffered non-life threatening knife wounds, police said.
Munoz told police that he sat in his Sebring after being kicked out of the bar and did not see the fatal fight. He claimed a friend who recently returned to Mexico jumped into the car, yelling, “Let’s go! Let’s go!” and that the other friend who was involved in the indoor fight fled on foot, according to Devlin’s statement.
But Munoz’s former employer told police that after Munoz dropped his car off at Cochrane Road that night, he admitted to partaking in the fight and then departed with two males. The next day Munoz, who had a “fresh” cut on his wrist, returned to Cochrane Road and told his former employer that he had stabbed the two victims with his “pocket knife” outside because they were beating on the friend who had gotten into the fight inside Rio Nilo.
Police are still searching for another vehicle – a silver pickup with double tires on the rear axle – that drove away from the scene of the stabbing death after the Sebring.
Munoz was found guilty of an unrelated assault with a deadly weapon, a felony, in September 2006.
The death of Juan Cabrera is the only violent death of 2008 and the first killing in Gilroy almost 11 months. Early in the morning of April 29, 2007, 56-year-old Juan Lugo was found in an alley behind La Colonia Latina, located on Monterey Street between Eighth and Old Gilroy streets.
In mid-May, police arrested 21-year-old Tomas Martinez Romero and turned him over to the district attorney, who charged him with murder. However, the charge was later dropped. Romero is now charged with two counts of attempted murder in an unrelated shooting.
