They had a bright future together. The late Eloy Nahum
Avenda
&
amp;ntilde;o was a father of four with a good job and a loving
wife, Hortensia Vasquez, who cared for the children at their Gilroy
home.
Now it’s gone.
They had a bright future together. The late Eloy Nahum Avendaño was a father of four with a good job and a loving wife, Hortensia Vasquez, who cared for the children at their Gilroy home.
Now it’s gone.
Avendaño’s unsolved murder is believed to be gang-related, as are half the 12 unsolved murder cases between Morgan Hill, Gilroy and Hollister. There were four more in Salinas over last weekend.
Avendaño, 40, installed alarm systems for a living before he died in March 2001. Now Hortensia supports the family working sporadically as a maid cleaning motel rooms.
“I don’t understand it. He wasn’t a gang member and never was. He didn’t know any gang members either,” she said. “I feel anger, repugnance when I see a guy who could be a gang member. What happened wasn’t right. My husband didn’t deserve that fate.”
It was no crime of passion and there was no money to be gained from Avendaño’s murder, police say. Avendaño and a group of friends were setting up a soccer field just after dark on a Saturday for a game the following day at South Valley Junior High School. They were Mexican nationals in a town dominated by Norteño gangs that draw membership from second- and third-generation Mexican families.
It may sound ridiculous, but a neighborhood with lots of hardworking Mexican nationals looks like Sureño country through the eyes of a Norteño, according to Sgt. Kurt Svardal.
“Gangsters don’t take the time and effort to figure out who their target is,” he said. “The Norteño gangsters, they don’t distinguish a Mexican national from a Sureño gangster.”
About 10 minutes before Avendaño’s death, a witness saw a red hatchback full of men pass slowly by the field. When the car returned, someone shone a flashlight in the athletes’ faces as the shooting started.
Avendaño fell to the ground with a bullet in his head and was declared dead on the grass. His brother, Macario, was wounded in the chest before the car sped away northbound on Forest Street.
“They thought someone was playing around, but then realized the sounds were gunshots,” said Sgt. Jack Robinson of the Gilroy Police Department. “You have a drive-by shooting, that’s a typical indication of a gang-related attack.”
Some, such as the non-profit South County Housing, have stepped forward to help Hortensia and her family. A group of SCH volunteers adopted her home for repairs and remodeling last spring, a goal she and her husband once held together.
But children bear the emotional scars of losing their father and Miguel Angel, 4, still brings him up.
“He still asks ‘What happened to my father? Where is my father? Why did they kill my father,” she said. “I try to explain, but I don’t have many answers for him.”
The following are the region’s other five suspected gang-related murders waiting for answers:
– Gilroy May 2000. Juan Miguel Trigueros, a 25-year-old college student with no significant criminal history was calling a friend from a payphone in front of a 7-11 on Leavesley Road. A pair of witnesses driving by on Leavesley Road looked over to see a man arguing with Trigueros. The man took a step back and pulled a handgun from his waistband and the witnesses saw two muzzle flashes. Trigueros staggered back to the store’s entrance before collapsing on the ground. The suspect was a Hispanic male in his mid-20s and last seen walking toward the Rotten Robbie gas station. What makes police think the incident was gang-related was that Trigueros never hung up the phone. Presumably he didn’t consider the man a serious threat – a big no-no when dealing face-to-face with an impulsive, angry gangster. This, in turn, may have triggered the killer’s reaction. Police think the killer and Trigueros knew each other somehow, but the connection officially remains unclear.
– Friday the 13th in June 1997 was not a good day for Carmelo Rodriguez Gallegos of Morgan Hill. He was standing in his driveway on the 0-100 block of West Dunne talking to some friends that allegedly belonged to a Norteño gang. Unbeknownst to Gallegos, 29, who was not a gang member, his friends had made some Sureños angry during a verbal argument a few hours earlier, according to Morgan Hill Police Department Capt. Terrie Booten. Around 10:20 p.m. a carload of Sureños parked near Gallegos’ house and one of them tiptoed to the driveway and fired six shots. One of the bullets hit Gallegos in the back of the head, but the alleged Norteños survived.
– Hollister Police Department brass now believe that the September murder of Jesus Sandoval, 23, at a local car wash was gang-related. One day out of Mexico, Sandoval was beaten to death with a pipe in broad daylight on a Sunday morning. The killer fleeing the scene was described as a 25-year-old Hispanic male.
“Somebody had heard them ask if he was a scrap (a derogatory word for a Sureño),” Chief Bill Pierpoint said. “He was asked if he was a gangster and then hit in the head with a pipe.”
– June 13 1998 12:23 a.m. A fight broke out on the 1000 block of Monterey Street in Hollister and several people were stabbed. One of them was 17-year-old Augustine Macias. The alleged Norteño gang member was pronounced dead at the hospital from a knife wound to his heart. Exactly why the fight broke out is unclear. One man described as a wannabe Norteño gangster from Los Angeles was charged in the attack, but the District Attorney’s Office failed to win a conviction. Therefore, the case is officially unsolved.
– On Nov.20 1998 around 10 p.m. Gregorio Ramirez, 26 of Watsonville was stabbed to death during a gang fight between several Norteños at a party on Eigleberry Street in Gilroy. Another 17-year-old male was stabbed during the fight in the front yard. A 16-year-old girl that happened to be walking by the house was stabbed in the back of the thigh. Ramirez has not been confirmed as a gang member, but he was never ruled out either. There was not a single reliable eyewitness account among the dozens of partygoers.
Staff Writer Dale Rodebaugh contributed to this report.
