Eric Ramirez is accused of pulling the trigger in three shootings
by Bob Glissmann
World-Herald News Service
Published: Friday, October 15, 2010 2:00 PM CDT
OMAHA - Eric Ramirez is the man accused of pulling the trigger in three shootings.

Three young people going about their lives -- two of them just off work, another who had just stopped at an ATM.

Three other young people driving around, looking to take somebody's money.

Their lives intersected on Nov. 12, 2008. The result: two people killed, another person injured and three people arrested and charged with crimes.

On Friday, the man accused of pulling the trigger in the shootings, 19-year-old Eric Ramirez, appeared in Douglas County District Court.

His trial, expected to last more than two weeks, follows the three-week trial of 17-year-old Juan Castaneda, who was convicted of the same charges Ramirez now faces: two counts of first-degree murder and one count of attempted murder.

The jury convicted Castaneda of felony murder under a law that holds accomplices accountable if someone is killed during a robbery. Prosecutors said Castaneda pulled the victims from their cars and left them for dead. Castaneda will be sentenced to life in prison in December.

As in the case against Castaneda, the testimony of 20-year-old Edgar Cervantes will be used to place Ramirez at the crime scenes.

Ramirez's attorney, Mark Weber, told jurors on Friday that unlike the case against Castaneda, prosecutors lack physical evidence against his client -- no fingerprints, no blood, no DNA. Weber also said one witness described the gunman as a 33-year-old man with fat cheeks. Another, he said, reported that the robbers may have been two black men.

Cervantes, known as "Blackie," has lied at several points in the case, Weber said, and has cooperated only to lessen the sentence he faces. (Cervantes has pleaded guilty to three weapons charges and three robbery-related charges.)

"He continues to lie," Weber said. "In the end, what you will know is that it is all about Blackie, all about Edgar Cervantes."

Prosecutor Brenda Beadle told jurors that Ramirez shot three people: Charles Denton, who was 21 years old at the time he was wounded; and Luis Fernando-Silva, 22, and Tari Glinsmann, 27, who died.

Ramirez, Cervantes and Castaneda, all gang members, were arrested within two weeks of the shootings.

Beadle said Cervantes told police that he had borrowed a car and drove Ramirez and Castaneda around town, looking to find people to rob.

The group had been at a party near 24th and L Streets the night of Nov. 12, Beadle said. Minutes after dropping off another gang member at his house near 15th and Vinton Streets, they pulled up near Fernando-Silva's house near 14th and Dorcas Streets. (Cervantes testified in Castaneda's trial that they first had tried to rob a couple on 13th Street, but were unsuccessful.) Fernando-Silva, who had just texted his girlfriend, was shot to death and his wallet was stolen. His relatives called 911 at 10:44 p.m.

The three then headed for Dundee, Beadle said. There, they tried to rob Denton, a college student, as he tried to drive away from an ATM near 50th Street and Underwood Avenue. He was shot in the biceps, and the bullet grazed his chest, landing in the passenger seat, behind Denton's girlfriend.

Denton, not yet realizing that he had been shot, called 911 at 11:06 p.m., Beadle said.

The third stop was at the Infinite Oil convenience store at 52nd and Leavenworth Streets. There, Glinsmann, who had gotten off of her shift as a clerk, was sitting in a car she had borrowed from a friend. After initially going to the car, she went back inside the store to fetch her hat before being shot as she returned to the car. A passerby called 911 at 11:17 p.m., about five minutes after she was shot, Beadle said.

Outside of court, Ramirez's sister-in-law, Cecilia Ramirez, 26, said she doesn't think Ramirez was capable of killing anyone. At the time of the shootings, she said, he had a job and his girlfriend had just had a baby girl.

"He was a gang member," she said, "but he was staying away from stuff like that when he had his child."

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