How to resolve AdBlock issue? LAKEPORT, Calif. – A Kelseyville man has been ordered to stand trial for attempted murder and numerous other charges for allegedly shooting his wife’s male friend and brutally assaulting her in an incident last September.
Andrew James Serrano, 39, will return to court in March for arraignment on the charges.
He allegedly shot Willy Turner in the chest with a .40 caliber handgun on Sept. 10, 2011, while Turner was helping Serrano’s estranged wife, Lesa, move furniture and clothing from the home that she had shared with her husband up until five months before at 3050 Big Valley Road.
In the same incident Andrew Serrano allegedly beat Lesa Serrano severely, holding the handgun to her head and threatening to kill her before deputies arrived on scene.
In testimony on Thursday, Lesa Serrano said that by the time of the shooting she had been subjected to months of harassing and threatening phone calls and text messages, death threats, physical assault and an incident in which her estranged husband rammed her SUV with his pickup in downtown Lakeport.
Judge Richard Martin ruled that Serrano should stand trial at the end of nearly two days of testimony in his preliminary hearing.
Regarding the Sept. 10 incident, Martin found there was evidence to hold Serrano for trial for attempted murder, an act which Martin said showed deliberation and premeditation; aggravated mayhem, a charge used when someone shows extreme indifference to the well-being of another person, with an intent to do physical and psychological harm; simple mayhem; assault with a firearm; spousal abuse; criminal threats and false imprisonment.
Consolidated with the shooting case were other pending criminal cases against Serrano, with Martin also ordering him to stand trial on counts of assault with a deadly weapon; hit and run; stalking; and three misdemeanors relating to Serrano’s alleged violations of a domestic violence restraining order against his wife and civil restraining orders against him held by two of her friends.
Serrano also will be held to answer for about a dozen special allegations involving use of a firearm, great bodily injury and potential strikes; Martin dismissed three of those charges because he did not feel they had enough evidence to support them.
Turner, who first took the stand on Wednesday afternoon, continued testifying Thursday, explaining how he spotted Andrew Serrano driving by his Kelseyville home on several occasions prior to the shooting.
In one incident, one of Turner’s sons was walking across the street to return a table that had been borrowed for a party when Serrano came speeding down the street and had to slam on his brakes to avoid hitting the boy. He then sped off, Turner said.
Lesa Serrano, who followed Turner to the stand, said she and her husband – now legally separated – have been married over 18 years and have three sons, ages 20, 15 and 10.
The marriage’s most serious problems started four to five years ago, and escalated from verbal arguments into physical violence, which the first incident occurring in April 2011. That was the first time she called the police on him. A few days later he would admit himself to the hospital.
She said on separate incidents in May 2011 he called to threaten her life – telling her, “You’re dead, I planned this out” – and in another confrontation threatened her again and used his hand to gesture at her like a gun. Also that month, he called her cell phone 33 times over an hour and a half period late one night.
On July 2, 2011, Lesa Serrano had dinner at Renee’s Cafe in Lakeport with friends Katrina and Kayla Hickey. While sitting near a window overlooking Main Street they saw Andrew Serrano drive by several times.
As they left in Lesa Serrano’s SUV, driving southbound on Main Street near the Courthouse Museum, Andrew Serrano – who was driving northbound in his pickup – got into the middle lane and then the southbound lane, ahead of his wife’s vehicle. Both vehicles stopped and he gestured as if pointing at each woman.
Lesa Serrano tried to drive around him and he revved his engine and rammed her vehicle. “He looked straight at me,” she said.
While he appeared to be reaching for something, Lesa Serrano said she put her vehicle in drive and tried to get away from him, with her vehicle getting scraped as she drove off.
Additional witnesses testify about ramming incident
Lesa Serrano described how on the day of the shooting her husband drove up while she and Turner were gathering items from the house. She went out to speak with him. He was standing by the side door of his pickup, doing something with his hands.
“He looked over his right shoulder at me, looked back down and I could see he was loading a gun,” she said, explaining how she ran back in the house.
Turner told her to go and hide, which she did in the garage. That’s where she was when she heard a loud gunshot. She crouched behind an electric cart and Andrew Serrano walked through and then left the room, coming back a minute later, spotting her when she moved slightly.
He came around the front of the cart, grabbed her by her hair and drug her outside, pointing the gun at her head and threatening to kill her repeatedly, she said.
She said he accused her of cheating on him, and she tried to talk to him, focusing on their children.
By the time Andrew Serrano was taken into custody, his wife had a wound above her eyebrow, he’d hit her repeatedly in the face and her jaw was knocked out of line.
Katrina Hickey also testified on Thursday to seeing Andrew Serrano drive by the Lakeport home she and her sister shared. She discussed the July 2011 vehicle ramming incident, during which she received an injured right arm and stiff neck. She said she was throwing up with fear by the time Lesa Serrano drove them to the Lakeport Police Department.
Lakeport Police Sgt. Jason Ferguson was on duty that day when Lesa Serrano and the Hickeys showed up at the Lakeport Police Department after Andrew Serrano rammed their vehicle.
“All three of them were hysterical. They were crying. It was rather chaotic in the parking lot,” said Ferguson.
Ferguson put out a countywide be on the lookout for Serrano, who was later taken into custody at his Big Valley Road home by the California Highway Patrol.
Ferguson said Andrew Serrano refused to speak with him after his arrest. They found his damaged truck, showing damage of the collision, in this garage. Inside of it they found a machete.
Andrew Serrano’s attorney, Mitch Hauptman, said Thursday he would not offer a defense for the purposes of the preliminary hearing.
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