Long Beach Police SWAT team takes up a position in an ally near Daisy Avenue and 4th Street in Long Beach on Thursday, July 11, 2019. Police were looking for a suspect in a homicide from earlier in the day in the same neighborhood. (Photo by Scott Varley, Daily Breeze/SCNG)
A Long Beach man on trial for murder in the 2019 fatal shooting of his girlfriend told a jury he snapped during an argument during which she had brought up a previous miscarriage, and that he fired the gun without looking as they began walking away from one another.
John Jay Osborne, 34, said he pulled the gun from a holster at the small of his back, extended his arm to the side and slightly behind him and fired one shot as 46-year-old Nancy Romero was walking away north on Magnolia Avenue the morning of July 11, 2019.
“I’m glad I’m not having your (expletive) baby,” Osborne alleged Romero told him, causing him to snap and reach for the gun and shoot.
Osborne then walked west across Magnolia Avenue and down an alley, past the home the couple shared, while discarding his jacket and the holster, which contained an extra 10-round magazine, he testified Wednesday, Nov. 2, in Long Beach Superior Court.
The gun was never found.
His public defender, Kevin McGurk, argued Osborne shot her in a moment of passion rather than judgment, which would equate to voluntary manslaughter, not murder.
Prosecutors said Romero had packed multiple bags and told Osborne she was leaving him during an argument. She walked out that morning, but Osborne followed for a half-hour and confronted her several times before the shooting.
After discarding the items in the alley, Osborne headed to his mother’s home near Chestnut Avenue and Ninth Street and told her some of the details of what happened, he testified.
He claimed his mother had offered to get him a motel room along Pacific Coast Highway, where he stayed for four days and looked up attorney information. He turned himself in with an attorney five days after the shooting.
The two met on Christmas Eve in 2018 and began dating in early 2019 with Romero moving into Osborne’s home shortly after, he said. Osborne testified that Romero openly used methamphetamine before they started dating, but started to hide her use after he told her he wanted her to stop.
Osborne testified he learned Romero was pregnant sometime in April, but they both learned she had suffered a miscarriage the following month. A medical expert would later testify, after a review of medical records, that Romero likely was first informed of her pregnancy the same day she was told of the miscarriage.
Osborne, who testified he was ready to start a family, said he believed Romero’s methamphetamine use led to the miscarriage.
“It still hurts to this day,” he testified.
Romero had returned to their home in the 300 block of Daisy Avenue about 11 p.m. the night before the shooting, he testified. After an argument between Romero and a friend of Osborne’s, the couple left and went to a bar, then to Golden Shore near the Catalina Express dock.
They returned home, but Romero “did disappear for a period of time,” leading Osborne to become worried and upset, suspecting she was using methamphetamine, he testified. He confronted her when she got back to the house.
“She didn’t deny it,” he said. “We began to argue…. She started packing her bags and said she was going to leave.”
She walked out of the house about 6:50 a.m., he said. He followed, with the handgun holstered behind his back under a button-up shirt and a jacket.
For a half-hour, Osborne said, he followed Romero along Daisy Avenue, Fourth Street and Magnolia Avenue, periodically stopping to argue, he said, also claiming he tried to calm her down and persuade her to go back to the house.
The couple was on the east sidewalk of Magnolia Avenue when Romero allegedly brought up the miscarriage, Osborne said.
Osborne never looked at Romero when he shot, he testified. He also never looked back at her as he walked away, but he “assumed the worst.”
She later died at a hospital.
Prosecutor Marlon Duke Powers asked Osborne if he ever went back to check on Romero, or ever tried to get her help, to which Osborne replied, “No.”
Osborne claimed he didn’t know Romero had died until the following day.
At the time of the shooting, Osborne said he worked night shifts at Papa John’s Pizza. He said he always carried a firearm for protection because he’s “a strong advocate of the Second Amendment.”
Immediately following the shooting, a SWAT team shut down the area for hours and searched, believing the suspect had maybe hidden in a nearby home. They also served a search warrant on the home.
Osborne’s mother, his mother’s boyfriend, his brother and his sister-in-law were arrested in January 2020 for accessory after the fact for helping Osborne avoid arrest. They all took plea deals and were given three years probation, court records show.
Originally published at Nathaniel Percy