"Drug deal gone bad."Sounds so Richmond, doesn't it? Not Walnut Creek.
Well, something of that sort happened here, and a Contra Costa County jury took just a day to render a guilty verdict on Monday of first-degree murder against Jonathan Marvin, 35.
Claycord.com reported it first, and the Mayor accompanied its post with this "enhanced" photo of the defendant, Marvin.
Marvin was convicted of coaxing Eric Martin, 30, of Pittsburg, to a parking lot behind a restaurant off North Broadway in December 2007. The parking lot is near the main Walnut Creek post office.
Marvin and Martin were, according to court testimony, friends and business partners in a marijuana growing and dealing scheme. In that parking lot, Marvin shot Martin five to six times to free himself of a debt of more than $10,000.
The Contra Costa Times, reporting on last week's closing arguments, had prosecutor Harold Jewett describing Marvin as a "hapless marijuana grower whose crop had gone bad."
The Times mentions that the victim, Martin, grew up in the Santa Cruz mountains and left behind a girlfriend and infant son. The mention of the infant son reminds me of one of the more poignant details of this case. It is how Martin was found slumped over the driver's seat of an Acura sedan early on a Monday morning and how an infant car seat could be seen in the back seat.
Marvin is scheduled to be sentenced May 22.
4 comments:
Still reading your blog, even though I've been very busy and not commenting much!
Keep up the good work.
I don't much like how you start this post. I mean, there are drug busts all over the place -- Modesto, Fresno, Oakland, Daly City. You stereotypically pick Richmond -- the West-East dark-white CCC thing; which has a ring of small-mindedness. Sorry.
Anon 6:33: I'm sorry you don't like how I started this post, and I could have done it better. It was more intended as a swipe against my hometown and the attitude, among some locals and others, including in the media, that "drug deals gone bad" don't happen in a place like Walnut Creek. When they do. The local and Bay Area media gave this case a lot more attention than they would a similar shooting in a place, like, yes, Richmond.
Better have some DA's to prosecute those crimes, though! Fingers crossed the Board of Sups does the right thing!
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