Warrant Details Alleged Confession in Dual Slayings

Moments after deputies arrived at the scene of a double homicide in an Upper Ojai home two weeks ago, Miguel Hugo Garcia blurted out: “They’re dead. I shot them both behind the right ear and several shots to the chest,” according to court records.

Deputies said they tape-recorded the startling statement from Garcia, who was found standing in the driveway holding his bleeding forearm as uniformed officers pulled up in the early morning hours of May 22.

Just inside the single-story wooden ranch house, deputies found 83-year-old Albert “Jim” Alexander. His 42-year-old daughter, Helen Dorothy Giardina, lay just behind him.

Both were dead.

Garcia, the sole suspect in the double slaying, was waiting for deputies with Giardina’s 3-year-old son next to him. The boy was unharmed.

In his alleged curbside confession, Garcia, 43, also told deputies that he shot Giardina and her father with “penetrating Black Talon bullets,” according to court records.

The statements as well as a list of evidence collected at the scene are included in a search warrant issued in the case. A six-page affidavit submitted by Ventura County Sheriff’s Det. John Fitzgerald detailed Garcia’s words to deputies.

Authorities have not established a motive. Garcia, who owns a successful furniture store in Pasadena, was an acquaintance of the victims.

Garcia is being held without bail in Ventura County Jail. He is scheduled to be arraigned on murder charges June 11, so he has time to find a defense attorney. Prosecutors are considering whether to seek the death penalty in the case.

Investigators declined on Monday to elaborate beyond the affidavit and would not explain how Garcia wounded his forearm.

“A lot will probably come out in the preliminary hearing,” said Capt. Mark Ball, a department spokesman.

Giardina, of Inglewood, had recently moved to her father’s Upper Ojai home to care for the octogenarian, who was suffering from cancer. Her son, Jim, also lived at the home. Giardina’s husband, Tom Giardina, remained in Inglewood for work but would come to the ranch home on weekends to spend time with his family.

Tom Giardina said he was not sure whether the boy witnessed the killing of his mother and grandfather.

The boy is now staying with his father and his father’s sister at the Giardinas’ Inglewood home.

After the shooting, detectives searched Alexander’s home and barn and a trailer owned by Garcia that was on his property next door.

Garcia owns the 20 acres next to Alexander’s property that he rents to another couple and their family.

Neighbors said that, although he lived in La Crescenta, Garcia was often in the area and had become well-acquainted with Alexander and his daughter.

Just a week before the shooting, Garcia allegedly assaulted, threatened and attempted to escape from Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies who pulled him over for speeding in Malibu.

When Ventura County Sheriff’s Deputies Kevin Wiseman and Don Simmons arrived at the home in Upper Ojai, they found Garcia and the boy standing in the gravel driveway of the small yellow house.

The deputies found a bright chrome-plated handgun next to Alexander’s body. Outside on the front lawn, they found a hunting rifle with scope.

The guns were among a dozen that were discovered at the residence--10 handguns, a rifle and a shotgun.

In the blood-stained house, detectives also found several boxes of ammunition, Cuban cigars, a Spanish-language martial arts magazine and several bottles of wine, champagne, sake and liquor, according to the search warrant filed with the court.

Inside Garcia’s 1996 black Porsche parked out front, they found eight bottles of wine, a blood-stained box and a Bible with $9 inside.

Two nicely prepared take-out dinners with two wine glasses were on a picnic table outside the home, a half-smoked cigar was found inside the small living room, and on one of the beds there was a rose with a note that said, “Love” and “H.”