Adrian Camacho, center, looks toward Deputy Public Defenders Kathleen Cannon, right, and William Stone on Wednesday just after the jury recommended the death penalty for Camacho, convicted of murdering an Oceanside police officer, Tony Zeppetella.

Oceanside CA.-Death Penalty for Killing Police Officer, Then Stealing his Patrol Car

VISTA ---- Twelve jurors unanimously agreed Wednesday that Adrian Camacho should die for killing Oceanside police officer Tony Zeppetella, then Stealing his Patrol Car.

Camacho, who braced himself before the jury's decision with his shoulders slumped and head down, seemed to have no visible reaction to the word "death" as the clerk read the verdict. Seconds later, he dabbed at his eyes with a tissue.

.Jamie Zeppetella, widow of the slain police officer, said the verdict "allows us to move forward."

"Today is a good day for justice, for our law enforcement and for Tony," she said in a prepared statement. She declined to say whether she favored giving Camacho the death penalty.

The jury's decision is just a recommendation. Judge Joan Weber will have the final say when she sentences Camacho on Feb. 7. Even though the jury has recommended death, Weber still has the discretion to sentence Camacho to death or life in prison without parole. In the past, she has upheld at least one other death sentence.

A death penalty decision will result in an automatic appeal.

'Brutality' pushed jury to choose death


Jurors, interviewed a few moments after the verdict, said it was the brutal nature of the crime that led them to decide that Camacho must die.

"It was the brutality of it, the total disregard for human life," said John Fortune, who during the trial was Juror No. 4. "We all kind of felt like Mr. Camacho had the opportunity to cease and desist after the first couple of shots. ... Every time the officer tried to make a move toward life, he shot him.

"It was torture to him. It was pure torture," Fortune said of Zeppetella's moments during the gunbattle that would leave him dead and his cruiser stolen.

Fortune said that one fact stuck out: "Thirteen bullets."

Camacho pumped those bullets into Zeppetella during the gunfight, emptying his own semiautomatic, then taking Zeppetella's gun and continuing to fire at the mortally wounded officer.

Fortune said the jury didn't buy the defense's argument that Camacho, a longtime drug addict, started the gun battle during a drug-induced psychosis. Camacho had a mix of street drugs in his blood the night of the shooting, as well as the prescription antidepressant Paxil.

Juror No. 6, who was the jury foreman and asked not to be identified, concurred.

"I looked at his actions before, during and after the crime, and none of it showed any evidence of impairment," said the foreman, a San Diego resident. "Quite the contrary. His actions showed meticulous judgment."

'Execution style'


Witnesses to the gun battle said it looked like a routine traffic stop when Zeppetella pulled up behind Camacho's car in the jampacked parking lot of the Navy Federal Credit Union at Avenida de la Plata and College Boulevard in Oceanside.

The traffic stop quickly erupted into a shootout.

"One juror said (during deliberations) this killing was execution-style, just one bullet after another," said Juror No. 12, who also declined to give his name.

According to testimony, Camacho probably fired the first bullet into Zeppetella as the officer stood at Camacho's car window. Camacho got off about five shots from his fully loaded semiautomatic before the officer could return fire, witnesses said.

Already bleeding to death, Zeppetella fell to the ground and fired back, striking Camacho in the leg as Camacho got out of the car.

Camacho pumped more bullets into Zeppetella, one of them striking his upper arm and severing the bone. Prosecutor David Rubin said that, from that point, Zeppetella was probably no longer able to shoot back.

Witnesses testified that Camacho emptied his gun as the wounded Zeppetella tried to crawl for cover. Camacho then pistol-whipped Zeppetella and stole his gun, firing the final shots into Zeppetella with the officer's weapon, according to witnesses.

The last four shots of the gunbattle can be heard on a 911 call made by a witness to the shooting, a woman who told police dispatchers that an officer had been shot and the gunman had sped off in the officer's patrol car.
 

Camacho broke into and hid in his mother-in-law's upscale Oceanside home about a mile from the site of the shooting.

Inside the home, he slit his wrists and scrawled apologetic messages on the bathroom tile in blood.

About four hours after the shooting, following a negotiation lasting about 10 minutes, police coaxed Camacho from the home.

The jury's verdict came after a day of deliberations.

"It was a tearful, painful moment in that room," Fortune said of the jury's vote to send Camacho to death row.

The courtroom quickly filled to overflowing, with about a dozen uniformed Oceanside police officers standing in the hallway.

Inside the courtroom, widow Jamie Zeppetella sat in the front row next to her late husband's parents. Tony and Renate Zeppetella clasped their hands together.

Across the aisle, some 10 feet away, sat Camacho's wife, Stacey, and her mother. Stacey Camacho, who broke down two weeks ago on hearing that the same jury had convicted her husband of first-degree murder, put her hands on her lap and stared straight ahead as the jury entered.

When the jury entered the room, their faces gave no hint of the verdict they had reached.

When the verdict was handed up, Stacey Camacho, who has two young children with Adrian Camacho, wept quietly.

Afterward, deputies quickly escorted her through an emergency exit as she covered her face and angrily shooed off reporters and photographers.

About an hour after the verdict, Tony Zeppetella's mother, Renate, said she silently spoke to her late son as she heard the verdict.

"One for you," she said of her thoughts for her son. "You got him off the street."

Back