JLWOP Inmates Raymond Jimenez and Andrew Nevarez
Raymond Jimenez and Andrew Nevarez were convicted in 1998 on two counts of first degree murder with multiple-murder special circumstances. In addition, defendants were found to have personally used a firearm in the commission of the offenses. Each defendant was sentenced to consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole plus additional years for the enhancements..
The shootings occurred at a birthday party in Corcoran during the early morning of July 23, 1997.
Jimenez and co-defendant Nevarez each had a gun under their shirt, tucked in the waistband of their pants: Jimenez had a .380-caliber Davis pistol, and Nevarez had a nine-millimeter TEC 9 semiautomatic assault weapon. The TEC 9 belonged to Nevarez’s older brother, who had bought it a few months before from Andrew Ramirez. Ramirez, an associate of the Fresno street gang, the Bulldogs, was also at the party.
Shortly before the shootings, Andrew Ramirez got into an argument with Daniel Marquez, a drunken 16-year-old , and Jimenez and Nevarez , listening to the argument, got angry at Daniel and reached for their guns. Ramirez calmed them down and convinced them to “let it ride.”
Daniel Marquez’ older brother David returned to the party, and Ramirez told him what had happened. David attempted to leave with Daniel but Jimenez and Nevarez, together with several other people, followed the Marquez brothers to the car. Nevarez pushed Daniel, and another argument started. Several people intervened, including Ramirez, and the situation appeared to have calmed down . However, when Daniel and David got into the car to leave, Jimenez and Nevarez drew their guns and began shooting into the car. They fled afterward and were arrested about a month later at the Mexican border. The two guns used were later found buried behind the home of Ramirez’s grandmother.
David was shot in the back 13 times and died at the scene. Daniel died the next day from a gunshot wound to his head.
Police found numerous nine-millimeter shell casings in the area around the car, a single .380-caliber shell casing, and a .380-caliber cartridge. All the bullets recovered from the victims’ bodies were nine millimeters in diameter; none of them was consistent with a .380-caliber bullet. Jimenez would later tell police he fired the .380-caliber pistol once, probably into the ground, and then it jammed when he pulled the trigger a second time.
