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Fresno woman ordered to stand trial in parents' shooting

- The Fresno Bee

Friday, Mar. 22, 2013 | 03:59 PM

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A Fresno woman was ordered Friday to stand trial for allegedly shooting her parents last year in their central Fresno home, a Fresno County Superior Court judge ruled.

The couple, Steve and Paula Alarcon, were sleeping just after 3 a.m. on Aug. 11, 2012, when their bedroom window was shattered by gunfire. Both survived.

Lisa Marie Alarcon, 25, is charged with two counts of attempted murder, one count of firing a gun into an occupied home and enhancements for using a firearm.

Both parents were shot in their legs. Steve Alarcon, 49, testified that he spent more than a month in the hospital and has required months of rehabilitation. Paula Alarcon, 48, said she was in the hospital for a week, needed surgery, therapy and takes medication for her nerves.

A longtime neighbor smoking a cigarette on his porch said he saw a woman who appeared to be their daughter, Lisa Marie Alarcon, walk up to her parents' bedroom and "fidget" with something in her hands before he heard gunfire. He then saw her go across the street to her sport-utility vehicle, get inside, back into a pole and drive away.

The neighbor, who The Bee is not naming because he is in a witness protection program, said he called 911 and went into the Alarcons' home to find Steve Alarcon on the bed unable to move and Paula Alarcon bleeding on the floor.

"It was real bad," said the neighbor. "I thought she was gone."

The neighbor testified that Lisa Marie Alarcon was wearing a baseball cap and had her her long hair wrapped up inside the cap.

He had been the Alarcons' neighbor for several years and knew their daughter because she had lived next door.

Lisa Marie Alarcon's lawyer, Scott Baly, was skeptical of the prosecution relying on the neighbor as the main witness because he had been awake for 18 hours, had had five 12-ounce beers that night, and the streetlights were out. The neighbor also said he never had seen Lisa Marie Alarcon wearing a baseball cap with her hair up that way.

Fresno police detective Mike Gebhart combed through her vehicle at a towing yard later that week and found rear light damage that matched what was on the street near the Alarcons' home, along with a citation issued to her and a photo of her and her son.

Lisa Marie Alarcon's next hearing is April 4.



The reporter can be reached at (559) 441-6166, mbenjamin@fresnobee.com or @beebenjamin on Twitter.

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