{"id":162692,"date":"2026-02-03T23:46:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-03T23:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/162692\/"},"modified":"2026-02-03T23:46:00","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T23:46:00","slug":"accused-gunman-on-trial-for-killing-man-woman-in-santa-ana-mobile-home-setting-it-on-fire-pasadena-star-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/162692\/","title":{"rendered":"Accused gunman on trial for killing man, woman in Santa Ana mobile home, setting it on fire \u2013 Pasadena Star News"},"content":{"rendered":"

An accused gunman shot a man and woman to death in a Santa Ana mobile home<\/a> and then returned less than two hours later to set the residence ablaze, a prosecutor told jurors on Tuesday, Feb. 3 at the start of a double-murder trial.<\/p>\n

Jason Philip Blanchard on June 10, 2022 showed up \u201cuninvited and unwelcomed\u201d to the mobile home where Steven Lucero, 30, and Jillian Jones, 33, were living, killed the two of them \u201cfor no reason\u201d and later \u201creturned to the scene to destroy the evidence, to destroy the bodies and to set the scene on fire,\u201d Deputy District Attorney Casey Cunningham told an Orange County Superior Court jury during his opening statements in a Santa Ana courtroom.<\/p>\n

Blanchard\u2019s attorney, Assistant Public Defender Sara Ross, told jurors that the wrong man was on trial. The defense attorney accused Santa Ana detectives of carrying out a \u201cshoddy\u201d investigation. And she alleged that the actual shooter was a man who admitted to entering the mobile home with Blanchard and who is now testifying against Blanchard after being granted immunity by the prosecution.<\/p>\n

According to the prosecution, Blanchard and the other man \u2014 John Acosta \u2014 arrived at the Bit O\u2019Home Trailer Park on W. McFadden Avenue shortly after 8:15 p.m. and immediately entered the residence. Lucero, who was wearing only a towel, asked Blanchard something to the effect of \u201cWho are you?\u201d, the prosecutor told jurors, and Blanchard pulled out a gun and responded by saying \u201cI\u2019m about to show you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Blanchard forced Lucero to backpedal into his bedroom, where Jones was sitting on a bed, the prosecutor said. As Acosta watched, the prosecutor alleged, Blanchard struck Lucero on the head with the weapon, causing it to fire and the gunshot to hit Jones. Moments later, the prosecutor added, Blanchard killed Lucero.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe decided to execute Steven Lucero and shot him directly in the head,\u201d Cunningham said.<\/p>\n

Another resident of the mobile home \u2014 who was in another room \u2014 told police that she heard Jones say something like \u201cWhere did you get rid of it?\u201d followed by a gunshot, then Lucero asking \u201cDid you just kill her?\u201d and two more gunshots.<\/p>\n

Blanchard and Acosta left the mobile home. The prosecutor said Acosta convinced Blanchard to let him out of his car. About an hour an a half later, security footage captured Blanchard returning to the mobile home with a bag the prosecutor said contained a gas can, moments before flames erupted from the mobile home.<\/p>\n

Later that night, Blanchard met a woman he knew at the Crazy 8 motel in Orange. When he asked her for a cigarette, the woman noticed Blanchard had gauze or cotton on his neck, she later told police. Blanchard told her he had been burned in a fire, the woman told police, then later added that he had killed two people that night in Santa Ana and had set a house on fire.<\/p>\n

The defense argued that Acosta, not Blanchard, was the actual killer, as well as the \u201cstar witness\u201d for the prosecution. The killing may have been related to a stolen truck and trailer, according to the opening statements by the defense.<\/p>\n

Ross, the public defender, told the jury that days before his killing, Lucero had stolen a truck with a trailer attached owned by a homeless man named Brian Salemi. Lucero had then sold the stolen truck and trailer to a man with the street moniker of \u201cBoo Boo.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hours before the killings at the Santa Ana mobile home, Blanchard and Acosta had met up with \u201cBoo Boo\u201d in Westminster and Salemi in Fountain Valley, the defense attorney said. Blanchard and Acosta had also smoked methamphetamine before going to the mobile home, she added.<\/p>\n

Ross sharply criticized the Santa Ana police investigation into the killings.<\/p>\n

Despite doing a forensic search of the bedroom where Lucero and Jones were killed after fire crews brought the blaze under control, it took four days for police to discover Jones\u2019 body in the small room, the defense attorney said.<\/p>\n

Detectives didn\u2019t look into Acosta\u2019s cell phone records, didn\u2019t realize he had a second burner phone, and didn\u2019t look at his social media messages, Ross said. A defense expert is expected to testify that the forensics don\u2019t match up to Acosta\u2019s description of what happened in the bedroom, the defense attorney added. And Ross alleged that surveillance footage taken of Acosta immediately after he left the mobile home showed him holding what she alleged was a gun against his body.<\/p>\n

\u201cJohn Acosta is a desperate rat who will do anything to gnaw his way out of a jail cell,\u201d Ross told jurors, adding that Acosta and other witnesses expected to testify for the prosecution are \u201ca bunch of crooks and liars.\u201d<\/p>\n

Acosta, during his own testimony on Tuesday morning, said he thought Blanchard wanted to stop by the mobile home in order to meet up with an ex-girlfriend of Blanchard\u2019s or a girl he had \u201cmessed around with.\u201d He denied seeing Blanchard with a gun prior to entering the mobile home.<\/p>\n

Acosta\u2019s testimony differed at times from the account the prosecution told jurors. Acosta said he and Blanchard encountered Jones in the bedroom before seeing Lucero. And Acosta described a seemingly nervous Jones at one point telling him she had just learned she was pregnant.<\/p>\n

Blanchard and Lucero were arguing loudly, Acosta said, with Blanchard asking \u201cWhere is it?\u201d and \u201cWhat did you do with it?\u201d and Lucero responding \u201cI don\u2019t know what you are talking about.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked why he later agreed to cooperate with authorities, Acosta explained, \u201cI just didn\u2019t like what went down with that girl, it didn\u2019t sit right.\u201d<\/p>\n

Along with a pair of murder charges, Blanchard is also charged with arson and with being a felon in possession of a gun. If convicted, he faces life in prison without the possibility of parole.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An accused gunman shot a man and woman to death in a Santa Ana mobile home and then…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":162693,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,1312,723,138,100],"class_list":["post-162692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news","tag-courts","tag-crime","tag-crime-and-public-safety","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162692"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162692\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/162693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}