By Brian Anderson
Contra Costa Newspapers

ec. 6, 2002

OAKLAND —An Alameda County deputy sheriff could not have been killed in the exact manner that a prosecutor had earlier told jurors, a criminalist acknowledged Thursday.

Joseph Fabiny said the evidence failed to show that the suspect who allegedly gunned down Deputy John Paul Monego outside the Dublin Outback Steakhouse hovered over the man, firing five or six shots from a handgun. Instead, the supervising county criminalist said, most of the bullet casings believed to have once housed the slugs that ripped into Monego were found in the restaurant foyer a short distance from where the deputy was killed. That means the shooter would have been slightly farther away.

Defense attorney William Cole has maintained during the trial that prosecutor Jon Goodfellow presented a bogus scenario of the Dec. 11, 1998, shooting. He has pointed out multiple times that Goodfellow told jurors in his opening remarks that accused killer Reuben Eliceo Vasquez, 27, stood over Monego before executing the Brentwood father.

Goodfellow has insisted in his questioning that eyewitness testimony as well as the evidence collected from the scene back up his account given to jurors in October.

A judge's gag order barred attorneys from talking publicly about the case.

Vasquez, Miguel Galindo Sifuentes, 23, and Hai Minh Le, 23, are each charged with a first-degree murder count with special circumstances. They could face the death penalty.

Monego suffered four gunshot wounds, one that sliced into his side and then through his heart. He was wearing a Kevlar vest at the time, but the slugs dodged the bulletproof material.

The trial resumes Monday.