Jurors hear closing arguments in 2019 Porter Ranch triple-slaying case

Drug shipments seized by Postal Service inspectors led to the execution-style slayings of three men inside a Porter Ranch home in 2019, with prosecutors laying out their case Monday against two East Coast men they accused of being the killers.

Travis Reid, 44 of Maryland, and Kenneth Peterson, 45 of North Carolina, listened quietly inside a Los Angeles courtroom as prosecutors explained their theory about how the pair flew across the country to rob and kill Gary Davidson, Reid’s partner in a coast-to-coast drug trafficking scheme, using silenced handguns at his home in the pricey Renaissance gated community on Feb. 18, 2019.

Reid believed Davidson stole $380,000 from him, Avila said, and he was prepared to kill him for the betrayal. But neither Reid nor Peterson anticipated that two other men, Benito Lopez, of Anaheim, and Jesus Perez, of Perris, would also be inside the home that day.

Reid and Peterson killed all three men, Avila said, when they pulled out the handguns from suitcases, separated them, then gunned them down one by one.

“They knew when they took out those guns, all hell would break loose,” Avila told the jury Monday. “When they take those guns out, Gary Davidson is going to die. And whoever else is there with him is going to die, too.”

But attorneys for both Reid and Peterson pointed to a lack of DNA evidence tying them to the killings. Tony Garcia, who represented Reid, said Reid and Peterson saw another unidentified man riding with Davidson that day, and suggested others involved in their drug trafficking operation targeted them.

“What’s very clear is that this was a hit. Someone went in there to kill, then leave,” Garcia said. “There were two kilos of cocaine left sitting in plain sight. This is supposed to be some sort of robbery? Get real. This was a hit.”

Both Reid and Peterson are charged with three counts of murder and one count of attempted robbery. They have remained in custody in L.A. County jail since Los Angeles Police Department detectives arrested them in June 2019.

The discovery of the dead men inside the home shocked residents of the exclusive gated community in Porter Ranch more than four years ago.

At the time, investigators were unsure how the suspects were able to make it past security guards at the community’s front entrance and theorized that one of the victims allowed them inside.

Avila said Davdison met Reid and Peterson at another location to pick them up the day of the murders. Davidson drove Peterson in a van the pair had rented back to his house, and allowed Reid to drive another vehicle with remote control access to the front gate.

He said Davdison would have been unaware Reid and Peterson were there to kill him.

Prosecutors alleged that Reid was enraged after a series of packages Davidson sent through the U.S. mail, each filled with tens of thousands of dollars worth of drugs, failed to be delivered to him.

Davidson had a connection with a worker who ferried the packages past USPS screeners for him. But inspectors managed to seize several of them, Avila said.

Despite Davidson assuring Reid he sent the drugs, Reid believed his partner was actually taking his money and spending lavishly on expensive gifts and cars for himself.

Avila said Reid asked Peterson to acquire two silencers for them to use in the killings. Investigators found text messages from Peterson arranging to buy the silencers and receipts for special ammunition they bought to load their guns.

Investigators also were able to place both men and two accomplices, Chaquetta Cook and Gregory Palmer, at a Burbank motel the day before the killings. The men had each bought one-way plane tickets to L.A., where they met Cook and Palmer.

Cook and Palmer both agreed to plead guilty to charges stemming from the killings. And both testified to seeing Reid and Peterson assembling the guns inside their motel room.

The pair left at least three live rounds inside the room while they drove to go kill Davidson, Avila said. A maid found the ammunition and called Burbank police, who sent an officer to the motel.

The officer was still there when Reid and Peterson returned from shooting Davidson, Lopez and Perez, Avila said, showing the jury security camera footage of the men spotting the officer and turning around.

Avila said the ammunition found in the room matched bullets fired into the victims’ bodies.

Davidson’s girlfriend was the only person to survive the killings. Police previously said the woman was sleeping upstairs when she heard a popping noise and a man scream. Avila said she hid for an hour inside the room with her Shih Tzu dog before calling a friend, then calling police.

The jury will begin deliberating over the case on Tuesday.