Action of suspect in hours before, after shooting death of Singh detailed in testimony
Around noon on Christmas Day in 2018, Paulo Virgen Mendoza began drinking with his neighbor at a trailer park near Newman.
He was later joined by his wife, who then left around 8 p.m. “because he became very drunk and started showing off his gun.”
By midnight, she had noticed his truck was gone.
At 1:30 a.m., Mendoza was pounding on the front door of their trailer. He told her: “I just shot a cop. I don’t know if I killed him.”
The events were described in testimony by Turlock police Detective Frank Navarro on the third day of the preliminary hearing for Mendoza, who is accused of killing Newman police Cpl. Ronil Singh.
Navarro was testifying about what was said during interviews he conducted with Mendoza’s wife, Ana Leydi Cervantes.
Prosecutors say Mendoza shot Singh to death just before 1 a.m. on Dec. 26, shortly after the corporal pulled him over on suspicion of driving under the influence near the intersection of Merced Street and Eucalyptus Avenue in Newman.
The preliminary hearing in Stanislaus Superior Court is held to determine if there is enough evidence to proceed to a jury trial. It will continue Monday.
Several detectives, as well as two of Mendoza’s brothers, also testified Wednesday and Thursday.
Shortly after he told Cervantes he “shot a cop,” Mendoza left. He returned at about 5 a.m.
She told Navarro she didn’t know where he went during that time.
Cervantes said she again saw Mendoza with his gun and he tried to give her four or five bullets, but she refused.
At about 6:30 a.m., Mendoza’s brother Conrado Virgen Mendoza arrived at their home in a Honda CR-V with their co-worker Erik Razo Quiroz.
Cervantes said she told Conrado Virgen Mendoza that his brother had shot a police officer. “She said Conrado just seemed sad,” Navarro testified.
Clothes packed in a Walmart bag
Then Paulo Virgen Mendoza left in the Honda with his brother and co-worker, taking a Walmart bag that Cervantes had packed for him with three changes of clothing.
Cervantes, Conrado Virgen Mendoza and another brother, Adrian Virgen Mendoza, all have been convicted of federal charges for aiding and abetting the murder defendant.
Conrado Virgen Mendoza is appealing the decision and was accompanied in court by his attorney, Megan Hopkins.
Hopkins objected to Conrado Virgen Mendoza being compelled to testify because he could incriminate himself.
Judge Ricardo Córdova said he could be compelled to testify as long as the prosecutor’s questions remained in line with his testimony at his own trial.
Conrado Virgen Mendoza testified he got a call from his brother around 2 a.m. to confirm he was going to pick him up. Conrado Virgen Mendoza said they were driving together to a job in Fairfield.
Conrado Virgen Mendoza went to Merced first to pick up Quiroz, then arrived at his brother’s home around 6:15 a.m., he testified.
“He was half asleep and drunk,” Conrado Virgen Mendoza said through a Spanish interpreter.
He said he helped his brother put plywood around the carport, where his truck was parked. Authorities say it’s the same truck Paulo Virgen Mendoza was driving when he was pulled over by Singh.
Conrado Virgen Mendoza testified that he, Quiroz and his brother left Newman in his Honda CR-V, then stopped to get gas off of Interstate 5.
A gas stop at Flying J
Paulo Virgen Mendoza was seen on video surveillance just before 7 a.m. getting out of a black Honda CR-V at the Flying J gas station in Patterson, according to testimony from Stanislaus County sheriff’s Detective Adam Rodriguez.
Rodriguez said Mendoza got out of the passenger side of the vehicle, went inside the gas station and paid for gas before returning to the vehicle.
From there, they headed north and exited on Highway 12 to go west toward Fairfield, but Paulo Virgen Mendoza said to go to their uncle’s ranch in Stockton instead, his brother testified.
Conrado Virgen Mendoza said his brother didn’t say why he wanted to go there, and his attorney objected to further testimony about conversations they had in the car.
Chief Deputy District Attorney Marlisa Ferreira questioned Conrado Virgen Mendoza about a bag his brother had that was thrown into a trash bin at his uncle’s ranch but he said he did not recall.
She also asked him about testimony she said he gave at his own trial in September regarding hearing his brother tell their uncle he’d shot a cop. Conrado Virgen Mendoza said Thursday he didn’t remember.
After leaving their uncle’s house, the three went to Quiroz’s house in Merced.
Conrado Virgen Mendoza said he left his brother and Quiroz there and went home “because by that time, I’d heard something about what was going on.” He’d received a message from his wife during the drive, he said.
Their other brother, Adrian Virgen Mendoza, was working at a plumbing company in Vallejo when he saw a news report regarding his brother and a shooting. Speaking through an interpreter, he said that because he can’t read English, he didn’t know if his brother had been shot or if he had shot someone. So he went to see him to find out.
A dairy south of Merced
He learned from Quiroz that his brother was at a dairy in El Nido, south of Merced, and went there to pick him up.
Adrian Virgen Mendoza testified his brother told him “something bad happened and he didn’t remember it very well.”
He said he wanted to help his brother and “made a plan so that he could get away to Mexico.”
Adrian Virgen Mendoza testified he went to a store in the town of Buttonwillow, west of Bakersfield, where he wired $410 to a woman who said she could send someone to get his brother.
They went to their cousins’ house in Buttonwillow but were told to leave after one of them heard Paulo Virgen Mendoza was wanted.
Then they went to their aunt and uncle’s home near Bakersfield to wait for the person who would take Paulo Virgen Mendoza to Mexico, but that person never showed. The defendant was arrested at his aunt and uncle’s home on Dec. 28.
This story was originally published June 4, 2020 at 6:57 PM.
