A pair of childhood friends from the East Coast who flew across the country to kill a Porter Ranch man and two of his friends with silenced handguns in 2019 were convicted of the triple-murder Wednesday following a nearly four-month trial.
Superior Court jurors found Travis Reid, 44, of Maryland, and Kenneth Peterson, 45, of North Carolina, guilty of first-degree murder for ambushing and gunning down 39-year-old Gary Davidson inside his home in the Renaissance housing development on Feb. 18, 2019.
Reid and Peterson also killed 46-year-old Benny Lopez, of Anaheim, and 34-year-old Jesus Perez, of Perris, that day. Prosecutors said the killers did not expect those two men to be at Davidson’s home.
In his closing arguments, Deputy District Attorney Victor Avila said Reid and Peterson brought suitcases with them under the guise that they were bringing money to Davidson in exchange for a large shipment of drugs. Inside the suitcases, however, were the handguns with silencers attached.
“They knew when they took out those guns, all hell would break loose,” Avila told the jury last week. “When they take those guns out, Gary Davidson is going to die. And whoever else is there with him is going to die, too.”
Jurors also found true the special circumstance allegation of multiple murders, along with gun use allegations against the two. Reid and Peterson were also convicted of one count of attempted robbery of Davidson.
Avila said Reid lost more than $370,000 when U.S. Postal Service inspectors seized a shipment of cocaine Davidson sent him from California as part of a cross-country drug-trafficking scheme.
Avila said Reid and Davidson had maintained the shipments and payments back and forth for an extended amount of time before the postal inspectors caught on. He said Davidson had a connection with a postal worker, who helped ferry the drugs and money for him through USPS screeners.
When the shipment didn’t arrive, Reid believed Davidson was stealing from him, Avila said.
Tony Garcia, who represented Reid during the trial, characterized the killing of the three men as “a hit” orchestrated either by someone else involved in the drug trafficking scheme or by a close acquaintance of Davidson.
Garcia also told the jury that Reid could not have been the suspect because evidence did not place him inside a vehicle that prosecutors said he used to enter the Renaissance community.
But Avila noted Reid and Peterson’s travel plans placed them at a Burbank motel, after they got off a one-way flight, the same day as the murders. And two co-conspirators in the killings testified in the trial against Reid and Peterson, saying they were there to kill Davidson.
The victims were found dead when officers went to the residence in the 20300 block of Via Galileo, according to the Los Angeles Police Department. Reid and Peterson had fled, but were later arrested in their home states.
The two are facing life in prison without the possibility of parole. Sentencing is set Feb. 9 before Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Curtis B. Rappe.
SCNG staff writer Josh Cain and City News Service contributed to this story.
Source: Orange County Register
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