Opening arguments begin for former Marine charged with killing Long Beach man
By Tracy Manzer, Staff Writer
Posted: 05/06/2009 07:33:22 PM PDT
Updated: 05/06/2009 07:45:01 PM PDT


LONG BEACH - Threatening phone calls, a full confession by a co-defendant and ballistic tests all tie a former Marine to the slaying of a 22-year-old Long Beach man two years ago, a prosecutor said Wednesday.

In a soft yet firm voice, Deputy District Attorney Steve Schreiner laid out the allegations against former Pfc. Trevor Glenn Landers, saying Landers and two fellow Marines killed David Pettigrew over a dispute that arose from the exchange of drugs for one defendant's laptop.

Defense Attorney Arthur Lindars said there is little disagreement between he and the prosecutor about the basic facts of the case. The question, he told the jury, lies in what was going on in the minds of his 21-year-old client, and the co-defendants, former Pfc Anthony Vigeant and former Cpl. Ramon Hernandez.

Hernandez - the gunman - confessed to police and pleaded guilty to all felony counts filed against the 24-year-old at the Long Beach Superior Court last month.

The trial for 22-year-old Vigeant, who is also Landers' cousin, is scheduled to start next week.

All three men were stationed at Camp Pendleton at the time of the killing, and all three have remained in police custody since their arrests in 2007.

Schreiner began Landers' trial Wednesday by playing chilling, profanity-laced messages allegedly left by Landers and Vigeant on the victim's phone just days before the Sept. 9, 2007, murder.

"Me and my homeboy Trey are ready to roll ... we know where to find you, not only at you apartment, but we have f------ military experience to find you," one message, allegedly left by Vigeant, said.

Jurors also saw crime scene photos of the victim, still clutching his cell phone in his hand, covered in blood and sitting on his couch, where he was found by a maintenance man the morning after he was shot.

The cell phone proved key in cracking the case, the DA said, after investigators found the threatening phone messages, and also found the phone number of Landers' cell phone programmed into Pettigrew's phone.

The graphic testimony and menacing messages seemed to hit Pettigrew's family hard.

Judging from their expressions and muffled exclamations, testimony from three witnesses who heard a single gunshot in the apartment where Pettigrew was killed, yet did not call police, also hurt.

The blast was so loud that one witness, who lived in a building next to the apartment complex where the victim was killed, described diving to the floor for cover.

Particularly troubling was the testimony of a neighbor, who lived in the unit next door to where Pettigrew was staying.

She recalled catching Landers in an area of the building that is kept gated and locked and where no one, other than the building's manager and maintenance workers, is allowed.

She described seeing a young, thin man with a light complexion peering into the window of her neighbor's bedroom unit from the off-limits section of the property.

After she asked him what he was doing there, she testified, he told her he moved in just two weeks earlier and had locked himself out of the apartment.

She said she was suspicious because she had never seen him and she told him that it wasn't a good idea for him to be in the area where tenants weren't allowed.

She said the young man was very polite and apologetic.

"I was hesitant," she said when asked about calling 911.

As the neighbor described the events that occurred just moments before Pettigrew was killed, the victim's mother bowed her head and closed her eyes.

Landers is charged with first-degree murder, attempted robbery and residential burglary for the slaying of the former Wilson High School water polo player.

Schreiner told the jury all three defendants decided to go after Pettigrew because the victim allegedly took Vigeant's laptop computer as payment for some cocaine, but Pettigrew never delivered the drugs.

Hernandez asked Landers and Vigeant, "What do you want me to do? Do you want me to kill him?" the DA told the jury.

"Both (Landers and Vigeant) said, `Yes, we want you to put a cap in him,"' Schreiner said.

Lindars agreed the defendants left their base and went to Long Beach for the purpose of retrieving the laptop, but he said he believed the evidence did not support the theory his client planned to kill the victim.

Lindars referred to the gunman's two tours of duty in Iraq - which ended when a suicide bomber exploded an improvised device, leaving Hernandez with head and facial injuries - as perhaps having an impact on Hernandez's judgment.

The defense lawyer also implied that the victim's intoxication at the time of his death played a part in the fatal incident.

"Nobody can predict what would have happened if Mr. Pettigrew was rational at the time," Lindars said, adding that the coroner's toxicology report found evidence of opiates, cocaine, methamphetamines, amphetamines and marijuana in the victim's system.

Testimony, including that of the coroner, is scheduled to continue today at 1:30 p.m.

tracy.manzer@presstelegram.com, 562-499-1261.

Ellie