Jury about to get case in 2017 murder of Cathedral City man
A Cathedral City man killed another man in 2017 out of jealousy over a woman, a prosecutor told jurors today as the defendant's attorney insisted his client was never identified as the shooter.
Ronald Dean Ricks, 37, is charged with one felony count of murder along with a special-circumstance allegation of discharging a firearm from a vehicle and a sentence-enhancing allegation of discharging a firearm causing great bodily injury, according to court records.
The charges stem from the Jan. 16, 2017, shooting death of 32-year-old Banning resident Michael Gordon, who police found lying in the street in front of 1296 Wyte Way.
Deputy District Attorney Josh DeGonia told jurors during closing arguments Wednesday that all the pieces of evidence in the case fall into a huge puzzle with one piece that will always be missing, Gordon's voice.
It all began when a white Dodge truck was rented out by a woman who lent it to Ricks' ex-girlfriend, Degonia said, adding that days later, when they broke up because he heard she was seen at a casino with Gordon, Ricks allegedly took off with the truck.
Degonia said Ricks' emotions boiled over to the morning of Jan. 16, 2017, when he allegedly drove to the house in Banning, stared at the direction of Gordon and the women at the house, stopped, and killed him before driving off.
Prosecutors say that within an hour, Ricks went to the home of two people he trusted and parked his truck in front of their residence before going inside to make a call on their phone. At the same time, his ex-girlfriend allegedly texted the woman who rented out the car and asks her to return the truck, say it was stolen, and to not give any names.
The truck was found the day after the shooting with gunshot residue outside the front door frame, according to Degonia. Witnesses described a white truck and the driver as a man with a bald head and a tattoo on the side of his head.
DeGonia said the only reasonable interpretation of the evidence is that Ricks was the only one with the means, motive and jealousy to kill Gordon. He asked jurors to look through the evidence, through surveillance footage and the text messages where he said Ricks' jealousy played out.
However, Ricks' defense attorney Eugene Stillman told jurors that of all the witnesses who saw and described the white truck and the driver, no one ever identified his client as either the shooter or the driver.
Stillman said at least two people -- Gordon and one of the women outside the home -- knew who Ricks was and should have been able to identify him, but didn't. He added that at least two people looked at the driver of the truck long enough to be able to identify him in a photo line-up, but instead another man was identified.
The witnesses who were at or near the scene at the time of the shooting all described similar events, yet no one mentioned the truck driving backward, according to Stillman, who thinks that should have been noteworthy to bring up to law enforcement.
Stillman added that there should have also been a more of an effort to look at the surveillance footage from commercial areas near the scene, but there wasn't, so he encouraged jurors to implore and look at all of the evidence before coming to a conclusion.
On Jan. 16, 2017, while Gordon was at a residence helping a woman load her dogs in a car, another woman saw a man in a white truck back up from a stop sign, stop right in front of the residence and smile at her, according to court papers. As she woman began to walk back to the residence she heard two gunshots, was pushed out of the way by Gordon, and heard a third gunshot.
She saw the driver with his hand and arm extended out the window, with a gun that appeared to be a silver revolver, and saw Gordon with blood coming from his side before he collapsed on the ground, according to court papers. The suspect then fled in the truck.
The witness, who is no longer alive, subsequently identified Ricks as the alleged shooter, according to court documents.
According to a trial brief, Ricks' ex-girlfriend said he left in the truck and she assumed he would eventually return it.
She was also previously in a relationship with the victim, according to court papers. In text messages from the day before Gordon's murder, Ricks appeared to be jealous of her previous relationship with Gordon and allegedly told her she was worth killing and dying for.
Police said in a statement that shortly after the shooting, Ricks turned himself in at the San Jacinto sheriff's station after Banning police circulated photos of him and identified him as a person of interest. He was initially held on an unrelated offense and was not charged with Gordon's murder until December 2017, when he was taken into custody in Hemet.
Ricks remains held at the Robert Presley Detention Center in Riverside without bail.
