Tow Company Owner Charged With Murder

THOUSAND OAKS —  A local tow company owner was arrested early Tuesday and charged with what authorities are calling Thousand Oaks’ first murder of 1996--the late-night shooting death of a Lancaster man.

Bradley Neill Raville, 42, was arrested hours after Ventura County sheriff’s deputies found Juan Elijio Carranza, 35, dead in the passenger seat of a flatbed tow truck Raville owns. Raville told police that he fired his handgun to protect himself as Carranza was trying to rob him at gunpoint.

“He had stated that this was clearly a matter of self-defense, that he thought he was going to die,” said Raville’s attorney, William Stephen Tomasi of Thousand Oaks, who spoke to his client after the arrest.

Within hours of the shooting, deputies went to search Raville’s home on Los Robles Drive, where they found Carranza’s 31-year-old girlfriend Cynthia Marie Carranza, also of Lancaster. She was arrested and charged with possessing 10.6 grams of the narcotic crystal methamphetamine. Her connection to the shooting was unclear Tuesday.

Both Raville and Cynthia Carranza, who deputies say is not related to the victim, remained in the Ventura County Jail on Tuesday evening. His bail was set at $251,000, hers at $20,000.

The shooting happened about 10:30 p.m. Monday in front of the former office of Raville’s business, Brad’s Towing, on Los Feliz Drive just east of Skyline Drive. Residents of a mobile home park across Los Feliz from the former office called sheriff’s deputies, reporting gunshots in the area.

When deputies arrived, they found Juan Carranza dead in the tow truck with multiple gunshot wounds to the head and chest, clutching a handgun. They also found Raville, who told them Carranza had tried to rob him. Raville had a pistol hidden in the truck, according to Sgt. Dave Paige with the Sheriff’s Department.

Raville complained of chest pains at the scene and was taken to Los Robles Regional Medical Center. After doctors determined he was uninjured, deputies detained him for questioning. Finally, at about 6 a.m. Tuesday, authorities charged Raville with Carranza’s death.

Deputies would not say Tuesday precisely why they charged Raville with murder. However, one factor may have been that when they first interviewed him, Raville told them he didn’t know Carranza, Paige said.

“That’s one of the reasons that his story didn’t make a lot of sense,” Paige said.

Cynthia Carranza told deputies that the two men had some kind of business together, Paige said.

“It was her understanding they were going there for a business deal and the two guys had left the house together and she was expecting them to come back,” he said. “And she was real upset when they didn’t.”

Paige said police did not know what kind of business the two men had.

While deputies found drugs and a syringe when they arrested Cynthia Carranza, no drugs were found on either Juan Carranza or Raville, Paige said. Nor were any drugs found in Raville’s house.

Although he did not discuss the confiscated crystal methamphetamine with his client, Tomasi said that Raville had expressed disgust at the drug and its use in prior conversations.

Tomasi said that he did not know what business Raville and Carranza had together or how long they had known each other. The two men left the house together, he said, and drove less than a mile to the tow service’s former office, from which Raville’s business had recently been evicted. On the way, Carranza began threatening Raville, Tomasi said.

“He was screaming at him, waving a gun at him,” he said. “[Raville] thought he was going to die.”

As they neared the office, Raville said he hit the truck’s breaks, grabbed a gun from under the seat and fired, Tomasi said.

Tomasi said his client was a quiet man, hardly prone to violence.

“I’ve known Brad, and he’s a stand-up guy,” Tomasi said. “He’s very soft spoken. I’ve never even known him to yell or say a disparaging word about anyone.”

Juan Carranza’s family could not be reached Tuesday for comment.