These facts are not in dispute:

In a span of four years and nine months, gang member William Arnold Armendariz III shot to death five people in three separate attacks, including the slayings of three people at a Banning cemetery in August 2020 as they held a memorial birthday party for a relative.

Five years before that, just after midnight on Nov. 7, 2015, Armendariz had gunned down 51-year-old Charles Neazer on 5th Street in Banning. Armendariz would later tell a jailhouse informant working for law enforcement that he believed Neazar was a rival gang member, which turned out not to be true.

And in July of 2018, Armendariz was one of the people who fired upon a car on Navajo Drive in Banning, fatally injuring 21-year-old passenger Bradley Cunningham. Almost two years went by without an arrest, prompting Cunningham’s mother, Michelle, to place messages on billboards imploring witnesses to identify the killers.

Armendariz, now 28, was subsequently arrested in all five slayings and pleaded guilty to five counts of murder in May after the cases were consolidated.

What is in dispute, attorneys told jurors during closing arguments in the trial’s penalty phase at the Riverside Hall of Justice on Monday, Oct. 6, is whether Armendariz is a remorseless killer who deserves the death penalty, or whether he is a product of negative influences in his upbringing and as a result should instead serve the rest of his life in state prison.

The jury began deliberating late Monday afternoon and was scheduled to resume discussions at 9 a.m. Tuesday.

Attorney John Dorr, who, along with Joe Galasso, is representing Armendariz, told jurors that Armendariz “took responsibility” for his actions by pleading guilty, thereby sparing others the emotional burden of a trial.

“He does have good in him,” Dorr said, after earlier noting that as a child, Armendariz asked his parents to feed and shelter his less-fortunate friends. “He is somebody worth saving.”

Managing Deputy District Attorney Christopher Cook, prosecuting the case alongside Managing Deputy District Attorney Kevin Beecham, painted a different picture.

“The defense will tell you he is not a monster,” Cook said, agreeing in part with that premise. “Monsters aren’t real. We tell our children that. Evil is real. It stalks people at night, it stalks people in cars, it stalks people it knows. And he’s sitting in the courtroom.”

Armendariz was 18 when he killed Neazar, had a child, killed Cunningham at age 20, fathered another child and then gunned down the cemetery victims at close range when he was 22, Cook said. In each case, others have been convicted, pleaded guilty or await trial for their roles.

But, Cook said, “It’s the defendant that is the leader. It’s the defendant that is driving the train in every one of these murders.”

On Aug. 30, 2020, family members gathered at San Gorgonio Memorial Park to pay tribute to Evangelina Ysiano.

Among those present was James Lara. According to a trial brief filed in court by the prosecution, Lara’s niece told investigators that Armendariz and his brother Christopher believed that her uncle had been a jail snitch. Investigators determined that during a brawl, William Armendariz grabbed a gun out of Christopher’s hand and shot Lara, 53, Theresa Sanchez, 42, and Felicia McCafferty, 48, in the head, killing all three.

The suspects fled the state before being arrested.

“The fight with Lara created a domino effect,” Dorr said. “Honestly, really, he just snapped and made a horrible decision and killed three people.”

Monday, William Armendariz sat quietly, occasionally chatting with Galasso and glancing toward the back of the gallery, where his wife, Erica Lomas, was seated. His head, which has a large B tattooed on the back, constantly vibrated. Lomas has an identical tattoo on one of her arms.

Cook said after the hearing that he believes the B stands for Banning. Lomas has said it stands for Billy, Cook said.

Everyone in the family refers to Armendariz as Billy, Dorr said, and that is the name he used when talking with jurors.

When discussing his client’s crimes, Dorr offered “Not an excuse, but an explanation. … Maybe we will never know the ‘why’ of it.”

Billy, he said, lived in a nice house in Ohio from age 2 to 12 and aspired to be a police officer or firefighter. Around age 7, an impressionable age, Door said, a cousin known as Big Jerry moved nearby.

“Big Jerry was not the best example for young Billy,” Dorr told jurors. Jerry, in his imagination, was a gang member. Billy and his cousin watched gangster movies “on a loop,” exposing Billy to what he considered the “glamour and the glory” of the lifestyle. “Billy saw (Jerry) acting hard and acting tough” and learned the way “he should act, the way he should be,” Dorr said.

At age 12, the family moved to what Dorr said was a poverty-stricken neighborhood in Cabazon and lived in a dilapidated trailer with nine other children. Before long, Billy was “clawed” into a gang, Dorr said, adding: “Billy became the gang member Big Jerry always pretended to be.”

“The line between the straight and narrow and the opposite is very thin,” Dorr said. “This would never have happened if he had stayed in Ohio.”

Cook said Armendariz “ran to” the gang.

Armendariz rose high in its ranks, Cook said, thanks to the thousands of dollars that Lomas, a member of a local Native American tribe, received every month from casino profits. Armendariz channeled some of that money to the gang, Cook said, to buy drugs and guns.

Dorr told jurors that a life sentence was not much of a reprieve, and that at Armendariz’s age, he might suffer in prison a long time.

“Jails are like gladiator pits. You are on a day-to-day basis,” Dorr said.

Cook told jurors that the gravity of Armendariz’s actions far outweighed whatever troubles and negative influences he had as a youth. Cook referenced the tearful testimony of Armendariz’s father and cousin earlier in the penalty phase.

“You can’t let the defendant steal those tears,” Cook said in calling for the death penalty. “He is the cause of more tears and all the other tears in this case. Sympathy does not rain down like manna from heaven on the undeserved.”

SANTA ANA — A 24-year-old man pleaded guilty Wednesday and was sentenced to 13 years in prison for his part in the robbing and killing of a man for his bicycle in Santa Ana five years ago.

Jose Luis Salgado pleaded guilty to a felony count of voluntary manslaughter and a misdemeanor count of street terrorism while also admitting to sentencing enhancements for being a gang member in a vicarious discharge of a gun causing great bodily injury and gang activity.  Co-defendant Luis Davilasilva, 25, faces trial.

Co-defendant Jesus Gonzalo Ibarra, 27, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to a year in jail on Dec. 8, 2020, to participating in gang activity, being an accessory after the fact, being an active participant in a gang carrying a loaded gun in public and receiving stolen property, all felonies. He also admitted sentencing enhancements for gang activity.

Salgado, who turns 25 Tuesday and has been in custody since July 30, 2020, had been charged five years ago with murder with a special circumstances allegation of murder committed for the benefit of a street gang, plus robbery, participating in gang activity and being an active participant in a gang carrying a loaded gun in public.

The victim, 31-year-old Pedro Morale Chocoj of Santa Ana, was attacked July 23, 2020 at about 7:45 p.m. by multiple suspects who wanted to steal his bicycle, according to Santa Ana police.

His body wasn’t found until late the next day, when police responded to a call of a man down on a dirt path next to the Santa Ana Riverbed north of Fifth Street, police said.

Chocoj was residing in Santa Ana with his brother and was sending money back to his wife and kids in El Salvador, police said.

Santa Ana detectives tracked down the victim’s bicycle on July 27, 2020, in the 900 block of Fair Way, thanks to a tip that also led them to a suspect, police said.