Prosecutor: Rumors and Drugs May Have Fueled Vigilante Murder

An accused killer’s mom spread a rumor that her next-door neighbor at a San Juan Capistrano mobile home park was a pedophile, which drove her drugged-out son to take matters into his own hands and kill the man, a prosecutor told jurors Monday.

That’s the picture prosecutors are painting for a jury and alternates made up of 10 women and five men in the murder case against Robert Eugene Vasquez, who allegedly ambushed  Bobby Ray Rainwater Dec. 1, 2011, nearly decapitating him.

In afternoon testimony Monday, past and current residents of the San Juan Mobile Estates park said Margo Vasquez she let everyone know there was a pedophile living among them.

“I was notified by her that there was a child molester living in the neighborhood, and I should be careful with my daughters,” said Travis Perrin, whose daughters were 12 and 7 at the time of the murder.

Perrin had moved to the mobile home park around September 2011. Hearing the warning from Margo Vasquez, he said he went straight to Rainwater.

“I wanted to clarify things,” Perrin said, adding that he found Rainwater very receptive to talking about his 1985 conviction, which was for an attempted rape of an adult woman, not a child. After that, Perrin said he had “multiple” interactions with Rainwater with no problems.

According to Bobby Ray Rainwater  Sr., his son had lived with him since being released from prison around 1989. He didn’t have a formal job, but did handyman work for the neighbors. He also regularly took out the trash and recyclables for some elderly women nearby and collected newspaper for his parents’ pet cockatoo.

Rainwater Sr. heard the rumors himself. Once, he was sitting with his windows open, listening to some girls play down the street, when his neighbor told them to “get inside quickly because here comes a pedophile," Rainwater Sr. said. The girls said, "That’s just Bob.”

Vasquez’s own girlfriend at the time, Sheryl Herrera, said she learned that Robert lived next to a supposed pedophile two nights before the murder. The next night, she interacted with him, but she didn’t know it was Rainwater.

She was on her bike, waiting for the defendant to get his bike from the shed, when Rainwater Jr. went outside to smoke, Herrera testified via video. Pregnant and on bedrest, she could not come to court to testify in person, Judge Richard Toohey explained.

She couldn’t make out what Rainwater said, but she did tell Vasquez that it made her uncomfortable. The rest of that evening, Nov. 30, 2011, Vasquez was quiet, Herrera said. Earlier, he had snorted methamphetamines. He ended up talking to his mom more than she.

The next morning, Herrera heard a man call for help three times. “Help, help, help.”

She ran to the front door and saw Rainwater Jr. in the street, though she wasn’t sure at the time if it was the same man she briefly encountered the night before.

And  Vasquez was gone.  She wouldn’t see him again until he was in jail, she told the jury.

When sheriff’s deputies finally let residents move freely on Dec. 1, 2011, Margo Vasquez gave Herrera – now engaged to a different man – a ride home. They’ve only seen each other once since then.

“I gave her a hug. I said, ‘I’m sorry. It looks like your son’s in bad shape,’” Herrera said.

Vasquez's attorney, Michael Perez of the Orange County Public Defender's office, said Margo Vasquez and several of Vasquez's past girlfriends acknowledged being victims of molestation.

"Everyone I know has some dick like that f-ing him," Perez said, quoting Vasquez without the shorthand. "I've got to lock the doors or I'll wake up with that guy [Rainwater] f-ing me."