Patrick Macon hit with 2 cold case hot ones

Murder charges filed in two cold cases


10:00 PM PDT on Wednesday, April 8, 2009
By PAUL LAROCCO
The Press-Enterprise
Solving cold cases in San Bernardino often has nothing to do with a DNA match or a name dropped out of the blue.

In the slayings of Aaron Hines and Joshua Stanton, the suspect was known to police from the start. But it took his conviction in another killing and a detective's persistence with uncooperative witnesses to gain a break this week.

Patrick Macon, who police said once terrorized San Bernardino's Westside, was charged with murder in the fatal shootings of Hines on May 15, 2003, and Stanton on Aug. 12, 2006.

"I'm just overwhelmed," Stanton's mother, Gwendolyn Patrick, said Wednesday. "It lets me know that somebody was working on the case. Somebody was working hard on the case, because this was one that nobody wanted to come forward and say anything."

Deep-rooted family gang ties made that especially true with Macon, 29, investigators said.

"Witnesses have always been an issue in our cases. Always," said San Bernardino police homicide Sgt. Dave Dillon. "People are scared to death and you're fighting an uphill battle to get them to talk to you."

Macon was in state prison when the criminal complaint -- including special gang and firearm allegations -- was filed in court Tuesday. He is serving a 23-year manslaughter sentence in the February 2007 killing of Edward Griffin, a rival gang member, and the wounding of another person.

His incarceration helped bring forward a key witness, said Detective Bill Flesher. A man serving time in Nevada had witnessed Hines' killing on West Gilbert Street and had information about the gunning down of Stanton on West 10th Street. He called in a tip shortly after Macon was imprisoned, Flesher said.

"He finally wanted to do the right thing after all these years," Flesher said.

The cold case investigator then re-contacted other witnesses and succeeded in getting charges filed against Macon in a homicide for which he already had been arrested and released twice before.

Hines, 28, was a gang member from Los Angeles who had been buying and selling drugs in the Gilbert Street area in 2003, Flesher said. He was sitting in a car when a man walked up and shot him with a .45-caliber handgun.

His family could not be reached for comment.

More than three years later, Stanton, 21, parked his grandmother's Chrysler on West 10th Street and joined a large party that spilled onto the sidewalk. The Rialto resident was sitting on the car when two men opened fire after a brief argument.

Dozens of people saw Stanton take 13 bullets. Most wouldn't cooperate with police, Flesher said.

The shooting may have been retaliation for a 2003 homicide involving a gang that Stanton may have known members of, Flesher said.

Patrick said her fashion-conscious son, a onetime church drummer who aspired to open a 99-cent store, was not a gang member.

"Someone once put a gun to his head to make him shoot somebody and he refused," Patrick said. "If anything, Joshua was just trying to fit in."

Macon's name was mentioned early on in Stanton's case, but as with Hines, witnesses would not help police develop enough evidence for charges. He was arrested Feb. 9, 2007, in another investigation.

That night, Griffin, 18, was fatally shot in the head while stopped in his car at 9th Street and Medical Center Drive. Patrol officers heard the gunshots and chased the suspects' vehicle into the city's north end.

A helicopter crew helped find three men who had run from the car. Macon was one, police said, found with a bulletproof vest.

During last year's trial, his attorney, James Gass, said the shooting was self-defense. Griffin, who had been implicated in multiple homicides, previously had threatened to shoot Macon, according to testimony. A loaded handgun was found under Griffin's seat.

Rejecting a murder charge, jurors convicted Macon of voluntary manslaughter and attempted voluntary manslaughter with gun allegations. Two other defendants, including Macon's older cousin, were either acquitted or convicted of lesser charges.

Gass did not return a call seeking comment Wednesday. No arraignment has been set for the two homicides, but when Stanton's case comes up, his mother will be there, she said.

"I don't hate Patrick because I don't know him," she said. "But if I could talk to him, I would say, 'How could you be so ignorant to take another human's life just because you can?'"