Jury finds Cathedral City man guilty of killing Banning man in 2017
A Cathedral City man who killed another man in 2017 in Banning out of jealousy over a woman was convicted today of first-degree murder.
Ronald Dean Ricks, 37, was convicted of the murder count, and jurors also found true a special-circumstance allegation of discharging a firearm from a vehicle and a sentence-enhancing allegation of discharging a firearm causing great bodily injury.
The charges stemmed 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.
Jurors deliberated for five days before reaching their verdict. According to John Hall of the Riverside County District Attorney's office, Ricks is set to be sentenced Oct. 13 and faces life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Deputy District Attorney Josh DeGonia said the steps leading up to the killing began when Ricks heard that his girlfriend had been at a casino with Gordon.
On the morning of Jan. 16, 2017, Ricks drove to Banning, killed Gordon then drove off, DeGonia said.
The truck Ricks was driving 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, he said.
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 text messages in which he said Ricks' jealousy played out.
Ricks' 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 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.
Stillman added that there should have been a more of an effort to look at surveillance footage from commercial areas near the scene, but there wasn't. He encouraged jurors to implore and look at all of the evidence before coming to a conclusion.
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.
