Jurors Hear Details of Chilling Murder Confession

By Penny Arévalo

UPDATED: 1:04 p.m. 

The murder of a convicted sex offender in San Juan Capistrano was a dispassionate and brutal act of misguided vigilantism, jurors were told Monday during opening arguments in the murder trial of Robert Eugene Vasquez.

Vasquez, who stands accused of lying in wait and then stabbing to death San Juan Capistrano resident Bobby Ray Rainwater Jr.  Dec. 1 2011, told investigators he had no anger when he killed his neighbor. He did it to protect his family and girlfriend from a “creeper.”

Senior Deputy District Attorney Ebrahim Baytieh presented snippets from a two-hour-plus videotaped confession in which Vasquez described hiding in the bushes, jumping and punching Rainwater and using a buck knife to repeatedly stab him in the back. Vasquez even described the sound one of his victims’ lungs made as it “popped,” before demonstrating how he held Rainwater’s head down to slit his throat.

Vasquez knew Rainwater was a convicted sex offender from his mom, the neighborhood gossip, according to investigators. She had wrongfully spread the rumor Rainwater was a pedophile.

In fact, Rainwater was convicted in 1985 of assault with attempt to rape an adult woman, not a child, Baytieh said. He served his time, and then moved in with his parents at the San Juan Mobile Estates park. 

"We are here because of a vigilante; complete and utter disregard for the value of human lives," Baytieh said.

Vasquez’s attorney, Michael Perez of the Orange County Public Defender's office, said the facts – the who, what and how – are not in dispute. He asked the jury to consider the “why.” Vasquez was showing signs of mental illness in the year leading up to the murder and was also a drug user, said Perez.

He said the jury would see the killing was not premeditated murder in the first degree.

Vasquez is charged with one count of murder with a special circumstance for lying in wait. He’s also accused of nearly killing another San Juan Capistrano resident, Lance Lyons, two days later.

Baytieh said Vasquez attacked Lyons because he didn’t like him. The night before the attack, Lyons had warned Vasquez to stay out of his elderly grandmother’s room. That set Vasquez off.

“He wasn’t that nice,” Vasquez would say of Lyons to investigators. “He was making me uncomfortable.”

The Vasquez family moved into the mobile home park in September 2010, and the defendant moved in around spring 2011, said Bobby Ray Rainwater Sr., who was among the first to testify Monday.

He recalled first meeting Margo Vasquez, Robert's mom, not long after she moved in. Talking on the Rainwater porch, Mrs. Vasquez mentioned in their very first meeting that she was a “revengeful person,” Rainwater Sr. said.

“She said she was a revengeful person and always got her revenge, even if it took years,” he said.

Later, neighbors would tell him that Mrs. Vasquez was circulating fliers, identifying Rainwater Jr. as a pedophile, his father said. She reportedly tried to start a petition to encourage the Rainwater family to move.

On the night before the murder, Vasquez’s girlfriend said she had a brief encounter with Rainwater Jr., Baytieh said. She told investigators she didn’t remember what he said, but she knew it made her feel uncomfortable. Jurors will see her testimony on tape later in the trial, Baytieh added.

In his videotaped confession, Robert Eugene Vasquez described Rainwater Jr. as a “creeper,” who would roam the neighborhood between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. He also knew Rainwater Jr. would wake up early, in the 5 o’clock hour, to have his first smoke.

“I said screw it, and I went under the bushes, and I waited,” Vasquez told Orange County sheriff’s investigators. Then he “just did it,” added Vasquez.

What Vasquez did, by his own admission, was start punching the victim. Even though Rainwater Jr. is a larger man, Vasquez was able to bring him to the ground. Vasquez reached into his pocket, pulled out a “Buck” knife and started stabbing him in the back.

A forensics specialist would later describe about a dozen stab wounds.

Vasquez said he heard a lung pop. Then he went for the mortal wound.

“I pushed him down on his head and pulled up on the knife,” Vasquez told deputies on videotape, mimicking a slashing of the throat.

Neighbors testified they heard Rainwater Jr. yell, “Help me, help me, help me.” 

Then Vasquez fled, Baytieh said.

While a nurse rushed to Rainwater's side, another went to get his father.

“I checked his pulse,” said then-neighbor Lynn Marie Broman, a registered nurse. “He looked at me. He just mouthed, ‘Help me.’ I told him to close his eyes. He was as close to me as I could possibly get without moving him, so he could see me eye-to-eye,” she said.

Rainwater Sr. ran to his son’s side. He called for his wife to get a blanket, as it was cold and windy that morning.

“I reached out to see how strong his pulse was and whether he had one. When I put my fingers onto his neck, they went clear to my palm,” he said.