Sitting outside the Anaheim hill with his hands cuffed behind his back, Jeffrey Ferguson muttered, sobbing in fury. He boasted of the glory of the past, boasting of putting outlaws behind the bar, and lamenting that his son would hate him forever.
It was August 3, 2023, when 72-year-old Ferguson had just shot his wife after a night of heavy drinking. They were in the family room, watching the final season of “Breaking Bad,” and he was firing a round from a Glock .40 caliber handgun, taking in the full view of his 22-year-old son, Philip. The bullet entered the middle section of 65-year-old Cheryl Ferguson, leaving her back high, passing through the chair behind her and staying on the wall.
Now Ferguson was sitting on a short shelf outside, but paramedics struggled and failed to save her life. The officer emptied his pockets, one of them asked, “What is your occupation?”
There was a long pause and Ferguson sighed before answering.
“I am a judge in the Superior Court.”
The exchange, captured on officer body cameras, took place for a ju judge this week at Orange County Superior Court in Santa Ana. His defense attorneys have not disputed Ferguson’s shooting and death of his wife, but they argue that it is a coincidence.
A longtime prosecutor before he became a judge, Ferguson had hidden his “abundance of experience” with firearms with the Orange County Deputy Bureau. Atty. Seton Hunt told the ju judge in his opening statement Wednesday. Ferguson loaded Glocks into a velcro ankle holster and wore them everywhere “unless you’re in the shower or asleep.”
At the time of the shooting, Ferguson had a blood alcohol concentration of .17, more than twice the legal driving limit after drinking beer, rum and margaritas the previous time.
Prosecutor Seton Hunt told the ju judge that Judge Jeffrey Ferguson had a “spread experience” with firearms and regularly carried the Glock in a velcro ankle holster.
(Frederick M. Brown/Pool photo via AP)
“I killed her. The ju umpire woman and gentleman convicted my ass. Ferguson said in a video that the prosecutor showed to the ju umpire in the police interview room. “I I owe it to my son. … a prisoner to me. … Please send me along the way.”
His son, Philip Ferguson, who witnessed the shooting, testified on Wednesday that he attended Southern Methodist University in 2023, but was at home that summer with his parents in Anaheim Hills.
He said he knew his parents were going to argue, and sometimes he went to games when his father drank, but couldn’t remember that they had many fights that summer. He also said he had never witnessed his father committing violence against her.
But that night, Philip Ferguson testified, and his parents were a heated discussion of money. This started at home and continued having dinner at El Choro Restaurant.
The debate reignited when they all went home and saw “Breaking Bad” in their family room, and at one point he was saying that his mother would say, “Would you like to point a real gun at me?” I heard.
Philip Ferguson said he turned around and saw his father stretch his gun and shoot his mother.
“I jumped and climbed onto the edge of the couch, grabbed my father’s wrist and secured it to the ground,” he testified. “As I was jumping over the couch, I heard her say, ‘He shot me.’ ”
The son called 911 and put a chest compression on his mother until paramedics arrived. He said he was with his father from time to time since the shooting and they repaired their relationship.
He said before the shooting, his father would take him into fire range and instruct him to be safe for the gun. He remembered his father’s lesson. “Always point your weapon in a safe direction. Never point your firearm at something you don’t want to destroy. Do not place your finger on the trigger unless you plan to use the weapon. ”
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Eleanor Hunter is presiding Ferguson’s murder trial after a fellow Orange County Superior Court judge rejected himself.
(Frederick M. Brown/Pool photo via AP)
Ferguson’s defense attorney waived his right to the opening statement. And it remains to be seen how they claim the shooting is a coincidence. Doing so may require the defendant to testify. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Eleanor Hunter is a judge of Eleanor Hunter, who is hosting the lawsuit due to an Orange County judge rejecting himself, cross-examines about his advance deal with her. Because he warned Ferguson that he might be.
Last year, Hunter determined that Ferguson consumed alcohol while awaiting trial — a violation of his bail terms — had lied about it. She claimed that the use of cortisol cream rather than alcohol has stimulated his ankle monitor, doubled his bail to $2 million.
“When you said it was cortisol who pulled the bracelet away, you lied at a previous hearing,” the judge told him at a hearing this week. It is “revealing” and “cross-examination is ripe,” the judge said.
Defence counsel Cameron Tully said such questions were “very incredibly biased.”
At the same hearing, Talley reveals that Ferguson was still holding a chair with a bullet hole and had it in his living room.
“In his living room, you’re not yet?” she asked.
“Yes, your honor,” Tully said.
Ferguson, who presided over the courtroom in Fullerton before his arrest, will continue to receive annual benefits salary of more than $220,000, but will no longer hear of the lawsuit.
Minutes after the shooting, Ferguson sat outside his Canyon Vista Drive home, sobbing, chastising himself, asking the police if his wife died, as reflected in the video from the police officer’s body camera. I asked repeatedly.
“I owe it to my son. … a prisoner to me. … send me along the way,” Ferguson told police in a video shared with the ju judge at the murder trial.
(Damian Dovarganes/Applications)
“I never thought in my dream I was sitting in my house handcuffs,” he said.
The officer asked how long he was a judge.
“Nine years,” Ferguson said.
And before that?
“I was the deputy district attorney for 32 mothers — it was the year,” the judge said. He boasted that he indicted members of the Mexican mafia, a prison gangster. And then the Vagos Motorcycle Gang.
“And now, like them, at the end of the day,” he said. “My son is going to hate me. …My son.”
More than 30 minutes after the shooting, officers informed Ferguson that his wife was dead. Ferguson told his son that he wanted to punch him in the face.
“I deserve it. …What is he going to do now?” he said.
Before he was led by a squad car, Ferguson had a different idea of police.
“You guys were a little late when we got here,” he said. “That’s not your fault.”
Testimony is expected to continue on Monday.
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