By Neal Putnam
A man suspected in a series of homicides on homeless people, including someone who attended Metropolitan Community Church, has been ordered to stand trial on four murders and numerous assaults on people who survived.
The preliminary hearing of Jon David Guerrero, 42, lasted five days and San Diego Superior Court Judge Kenneth So ordered him to stand trial after hearing many witnesses about the 2016 series.
Deputy District Attorney Makenzie Harvey said a possible motive surfaced in which an officer testified a surviving homeless victim asked his attacker why did he stab him in the face.
“Because you’re a bum,” the officer said the attacker told him.
All but one of the victims were homeless, but that remark is the only time in which someone said Guerrero said anything during the attack.
This is a little difficult to write because I knew Angelo DeNardo, 53, the first person killed on July 3, 2016. Angelo attended Metropolitan Community Church and also the adult Sunday School class for two years.
I had lunch with him at least twice. He was a gentle soul who would never hurt anyone. He never asked anyone for money and always paid his own way for lunch.
Angelo was well functioning for a homeless man who lived under the Clairemont Drive bridge off Interstate 5 near Mission Bay. He had a bus pass, a cell phone, and collected a disability check from Social Security.
I thought he might have Tourette’s syndrome because he sometimes said odd things, perhaps involuntarily, but he had no facial tics. He was just Angelo and we accepted him for who he was.
“He was a loving, funny, friendly person who will be hugely missed,” said MCC member Kathy Wilson at the time. “To find out when he was killed so violently. When Pastor Dan made the announcement, I wanted to scream, cry out and grieve.”
On his last Sunday morning, Angelo was asleep under the bridge and was killed when someone hammered a railroad spike through his head and also his chest. He died from blunt force trauma, and then his body was set on fire.
While going to MCC that Sunday morning, Teresa Biery noticed police converging on the area where Angelo slept. She wondered what it was about. We didn’t see Angelo that Sunday.
Guerrero is also charged with the special circumstance of committing multiple murders and a decision as to whether he faces the death penalty or life in prison without parole has not yet been made by the District Attorney. He is also charged with arson, attempted murder, and assault.
He will get a trial date on Dec. 2. Guerrero has pleaded not guilty and remains in jail without bail.
His attorney, Dan Tandon, has long said Guerrero is mentally ill. This hearing was delayed for years because Guerrero was housed at a state mental hospital after being found mentally incompetent to understand court proceedings.
Judge So found Guerrero was mentally competent in a competency trial in June.
Police detective David Spitzer testified Guerrero was seen on surveillance camera footage at a nearby service station purchasing a red gas can along with gasoline some minutes before Angelo was killed. A witness saw a man running away from the scene carrying a red gas can, which was recovered.
The second homicide victim was Shawn Longley, 41, in Ocean Beach on July 4, 2016, and he was found on a sidewalk and partially out of a sleeping bag near tennis courts and a park. A railroad spike was found beside his head.
The third man killed was Dionicio Vahidy, 23, in downtown San Diego. He was attacked two days later and died in a hospital.
The fourth victim killed, Molly Simons, 83, of North Park, broke the pattern in that she was the only non-homeless person attacked. Harvey said the pattern was similar, however, because surveillance cameras showed a man on a bicycle carrying some type of weapon before Simons was struck in the head on July 13, 2016.
Simons volunteered at a local YMCA and was walking to a bus stop around 5 a.m. when she was struck to the back of her head in an alley on Arizona Street near University Avenue. She was taken to a hospital and died two weeks later from a skull fracture.
Harvey said in court one victim, Michael Mason, survived a railroad spike hammered into his face, but he was left blinded when he was attacked in the Midway area in 2016. Mason died in July 2019.
A homeless woman was also among the victims and she survived. Video surveillance showed a man on a bicycle coming by, and the victim appears to get up only to fall down repeatedly. The attacks themselves were not captured by surveillance cameras.
When police searched Guerrero’s apartment in the East Village, they found identification from two murder victims in his possession along with railroad spikes, police said.
At the funeral for Angelo and also in memory of the others, Biery read a litany for social justice and others recalled how they met him.
“Angelo was part of this church. I remember his wonderful smile and gracious personality,” said Senior Pastor Dan Koeshall at the funeral. “We’re here to celebrate that all life is sacred. It’s important to be reminded that no one is defined by life’s circumstance, but by God.”
