Neighbor Is Arrested After Youth Dies in Fight : Violence: Jesse Joe Camarillo, 16, is stabbed to death on an El Rio sidewalk. A friend of the victim says the suspect started the altercation.

A 16-year-old El Rio youth was stabbed to death in a fight early Sunday morning with a neighbor who provoked the altercation with taunts and profanity, authorities and eyewitnesses said.

Jesse Joe Camarillo collapsed and died on the sidewalk along Helsam Avenue in El Rio at 2:02 a.m. from multiple stab wounds in the stomach and chest, authorities said.

After talking to witnesses, Ventura County sheriff’s deputies arrested Ralph Daniel Hernandez, 19, of El Rio, Lt. Paul Anderson said. Hernandez was being held at Ventura County Jail in lieu of $250,000 bail, a jail spokesman said. His arraignment is scheduled for Tuesday.

“It does not appear to be gang-related in any way,” Anderson said.

David Morales Jr., a friend who witnessed the fight, said he and Jesse had just left a party in the neighborhood and were walking home when they stopped to talk with Hernandez’s sister Tina.

“We were just standing by his mailbox, talking,” Morales said. Then Hernandez came home and was walking toward the door when he turned and began cursing at Jesse, Morales said. He said he knew of no reason why Hernandez was challenging Jesse because the two were only acquaintances.

Jesse grew angry at the taunts but was stopped from fighting by Morales’ older brother, Morales said.

“Ralph goes inside the house and Tina says, ‘You know he’s going to get a knife or a gun. So just get out of here,’ ” Morales said.

The group was in the driveway of Morales’ home at 401 Helsam Ave. when Hernandez came back out and taunted Jesse with profanities again, Morales said.

Jesse ran to Hernandez’s front yard two doors away, and the two began punching each other, Morales said. “I didn’t see the blade of the knife, but I could tell he was holding something in his fist,” he said. The fight lasted about 10 seconds, Morales said.

Hernandez went inside his house and Jesse started walking toward Morales’ house, with Morales supporting him. They walked only a few feet before Jesse collapsed in front of a next-door neighbor’s house.

“We heard a fight,” said Maria Gilbert, the neighbor. “They woke me up. We heard Ralph yelling at someone else. . . . We couldn’t see anything. And then it was quiet.”

Gilbert said she looked out her front window and saw a body on her sidewalk. “Then the boys pounded on the door for Gil for help,” she said, of her husband, who is trained in first-aid care.

Morales’ father and Gil Gilbert worked on the youth for several minutes awaiting paramedics, Morales said. But Jesse died about three minutes before the ambulance arrived, he said.

County Deputy Coroner Mitch Breese said Jesse died from a stab wound to the heart. He also had several stab wounds in his stomach and upper chest.

Jesse had moved back from Los Angeles to El Rio in December and “was starting to get turned around,” Morales said. Jesse, a school dropout, had returned to Rio Mesa High School in January and planned to work full time this summer.

“He was really quiet, shy, I guess,” said David Camarillo, an older brother. “He got into drugs, but he straightened out about eight or nine months ago.”

Sandra Morales, David Morales’ mother, mourned the loss of her neighbor. “Jesse was a nice kid, he was like family,” she said.

Jesse is survived by his mother and two older brothers.