Pubdate: Wed, 05 Apr 2006
Source: Des Moines Register (IA)
Copyright: 2006 The Des Moines Register.
Contact:  http://desmoinesregister.com/index.html
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/123
Author: Jeff Eckhoff
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)

MURDERED TEEN CALLED POT DEALER

The lawyer for Anthony Anania's alleged killer says other people had 
a motive for killing him.

A popular south-side teenager whose shooting death baffled neighbors 
and relatives last summer was a large-scale marijuana dealer known 
for having significant quantities of drugs and cash, a lawyer for his 
accused killer has alleged.

Anthony Anania, 19, was found critically injured in May behind the 
wheel of his car, which had collided with a tree in the 700 block of 
Southeast Park Avenue. He was taken to a hospital, where police 
learned he had been shot.

"I watched him as a little boy, coming to church," Polk County 
Attorney John Sarcone, a distant cousin, told the Register a few days 
after the teen's death. "As he grew up, I watched him working at 
Dahl's grocery store on the south side. He was a very pleasant, very 
polite young man. No one expected anything like this."

Friends said Anania lived with his parents and was looking for work 
after a stint with a lawn-care company. They said he planned to 
attend Des Moines Area Community College last fall.

But documents filed by lawyers for Christian Munoz-Gonzales, 19, 
describe Anania, a 2004 Lincoln High School graduate, as a drug 
dealer who was in contact with "literally hundreds of different 
people" via cell phone in the weeks before his death, which suggests 
"that at least several other persons had knowledge of Mr. Anania's 
business practices, including access to large amounts of drugs and money.

"Accordingly, it is apparent that others had opportunity and motive 
to kill Mr. Anania."

One of those people confessed, according to court documents.

Munoz-Gonzales' attorneys last week won a postponement of his 
first-degree murder trial -- it had been scheduled to start Monday -- 
and said they need time to investigate fourth-hand statements that 
point to former Des Moines resident Felix Baccam.

Court papers say two men, snared in an unrelated theft investigation, 
told suburban police earlier this year that Baccam had confessed the 
murder to Baccam's mother.

"We've got to check this out," defense attorney Wes Dunbar said last 
week. "I don't know any of the answers, but I know a lot of questions."

Polk County prosectors declined to comment on the case. But Baccam's 
mother, Rosa Hernandez-Baccam, said she's given police proof that her 
son was in Mexico when Anania was shot.

"All they're saying is just lies," Hernandez-Baccam said. "He wasn't 
even in the country when that happened, and he has not come back."

Polk County authorities have said Munoz-Gonzales and Anania were 
involved in at least one drug transaction that involved "two or 
three" marijuana bricks, which changed hands roughly two months 
before Anania's death.

Cell phone records show that Munoz-Gonzales also contacted Anania 
roughly 10 minutes before the May 28 shooting. Shortly thereafter, 
Munoz-Gonzales received the first of six calls from members of La 
Raza Loca, a drug-dealing street gang.

An attorney for Marta Arambul, Munoz-Gonzales' former girlfriend and 
an alleged witness to the Anania drug deal, said he expects her to 
testify at the murder trial, rescheduled for June 5.
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