The former fiancee of a man alleged to have shot and killed Omar Flores last fall testified this morning that she had purchased a bus ticket that allowed the man to go back to his family in Guadalajara, Mexico, after the shooting.
Naomi Ruby Camarena testified that she had withheld information for several months from Emporia police because she felt threatened by the family of the man who provided the money to buy the ticket.
Camarena is one of several witnesses who have been granted a degree of immunity to testify in the trial of Samuel Llamas, who is also accused in the shooting, which happened Sept. 8, 2009, in the parking lot of the Rodeway Inn, 3181 W. Highway 50.
Llamas is alleged to have been with Ismael (Mike) Navarro, who Camarena testified told her that he shot Flores.
Before testimony began at 9 a.m. today, attorneys and witnesses met without jurors in the courtroom to discuss procedures for witnesses who defense attorney Mark Manna said might incriminate themselves with their testimony.
Manna had raised the subject before testimony began Tuesday. He questioned whether some of the witnesses had been granted immunity and whether they had been cautioned their testimony for the prosecution might be detrimental to them.
Emporians Camarena, her brother Michael Camarena and Joseph Meyers were named on Tuesday as witnesses with grants of immunity, and that a derivative court immunity had recently been filed regarding Matthew Miller, who lives near Ottawa.
Miller was identified in testimony today as the “money man” for Flores in a drug deal that sent Navarro by train to California to bring back crystal methamphetamine for Flores to sell.
Ruby Camarena testified this morning that a contentious situation developed when Flores did not repay several thousand dollars due Navarro for the crystal meth.
Camarena said that contacts in California from whom Navarro got the meth were calling him daily with questions about paying for the drugs Navarro allegedly gave to Flores.
For more from today's testimony, see Thursday's print and online pdf editions.
glarson (anonymous) says...
Sorry, gang. The earlier version of this story picked up the slug from the missing teen story. We fixed the problem by loading this story as a new document and deleting the old version. But that means your comments are gone, too. (I hate technology sometimes.)
Gwen Larson
April 14, 2010 at 4:08 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
lovelyp0is0n (anonymous) says...
I think this is just a crazy mess. Everyone involved should go to jail. Scared? are you really scared of him...or the cops....
April 14, 2010 at 11:06 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )