Ojai cops chase, capture suspect in O.C. murder
by Lenny Roberts

An Orange County murder suspect surrendered to Sheriff's deputies in Ventura Sunday night after a two-hour, slow- and high-speed pursuit began in Oak View.
Working patrol in the Oak View area, Deputy Robert Davidson spotted the suspect and his reportedly stolen vehicle, a white, 1994 Lincoln Town Car that was registered to the victim, at The Corner Market on Santa Ana and Burnham roads at 6:46 p.m. When the suspect, Gregory Michael Pisarcik, 25, left the market and failed to yield to Davidson's request, other deputies joined the pursuit, which took them down Baldwin Road to Highway 33, through Oak View and Casitas Springs at mostly slower-than-posted speeds. The pursuit escalated when the suspect entered the Ojai Freeway. From there, it was on to the Ventura Freeway, and then on to the 126 Freeway to Santa Paula, where the suspect allegedly fired a single shot out the passenger side window. The shot, according to pursuing deputies, was not aimed at them, said Detective Joe Evans.
Pisarcik then headed back on 126 toward Ventura, and then toward Santa Barbara. Again, he reversed course back to the Ojai Freeway, where he exited at Stanley Avenue. Once on Ventura Avenue, he turned into the OST heavy equipment lot near the De Anza Middle School at Seneca Street.
According to Eric Nishimoto, Sheriff's Department public information officer, a deputy's shotgun blast to a tire disabled Pisarcik's vehicle after it had become blocked by the pursuing patrol cars.
Evans, a member of the Sheriff's Hostage Negotiations Team, arrived and successfully talked Pisarcik into surrendering peaceably after a 20-minute standoff.
"(Sheriff's Capt.) Gary (Pentis) asked me to talk to the guy, and I tried to get him out of the car," Evans said. "We communicated by hand gestures (because of a low-flying Sheriff's helicopter circling above), and he complied with my request to stand in front of the car. He was then arrested by SWAT members."
Pisarcik is accused of killing Narciso Leggs Jr., 53, a retired special agent with the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Details of their relationship were not revealed, but the cause of death was.
"He died of blunt force trauma to the head. There was some torture and mayhem, but I don't want to get in to describing that," said Orange County Sheriff's Department Public Information Officer Jim Amormino.
Leggs' body was discovered Saturday morning in a garage apartment on Irvine Boulevard in an unincorporated area near Santa Ana after the landlord notified Orange county sheriff's deputies that he had not seen his tenant for two days. Leggs was found bound and gagged and violently assaulted, according to information supplied by the Orange County Sheriff's-Coroner Department.
"The apartment had been ransacked and it is believed personal property of the victim had been stolen," Amormino said.
The information about the suspect and his vehicle was broadcast by a Sheriff's dispatcher at approximately 5:45 p.m. Sunday after local authorities had received information from the Orange County Sheriff's Department that Pisarcik, considered armed and dangerous, could possibly be in the area. According to the broadcast, he was seen exchanging license plates at a Ventura store parking lot with another white Lincoln registered to a person in Camarillo.
Amormino explained that a young girl saw a man removing the plates from a car in the Mervyn's parking lot. She alerted her father, who, in turn, notified the vehicle's owner. The owner then contacted the Ventura Police Department with the information that led to the radio broadcast to all county deputies. Orange County authorities are seeking the identity of the young girl and her father who witnessed Pisarcik allegedly remove the license plates from the other vehicle.
Ojai detectives are familiar with Pisarcik. According to police records, he is a transient with former residences in both Orange and Ojai. He is not employed, but has worked in retail sales, and has several arrests and convictions for narcotics violations and the theft of an Ojai businessman's truck and $3,600 in cash in December 1999. He was booked into Ventura County Jail on suspicion of felony evading in a vehicle pending his transport to Orange County.
Ojai substation Administrative Sergeant Ken Edling said he was pleased with the manner in which deputies handled the incident, and acknowledged that Davidson, a relatively new officer, was alert in recognizing the suspect and his vehicle.
"The fact that he was aware and spotted the guy doesn't surprise me at all," Edling said. "He does a good job, and we've been very fortunate here; we seem to always get good people."

© 2002 The Ojai Valley News

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