The blood that stained the courtyard of the modest Thousand Oaks apartment complex had been washed away by Monday morning. In its place stood a makeshift memorial: A teddy bear and a few balloons. A Winnie-the-Pooh baby blanket. And a single rose for every year the young victim had lived.
Sev'n Molina, age 6, was hacked to death with a meat cleaver Sunday night, as his mother fought to save his life, terrified neighbors called 911 and the bravest among them tried to intervene in the grisly struggle.
Sheriff's deputies arrested Calvin Sharp, 27, and took him to Ventura County Jail, said Senior Sheriff's Deputy Julie Novak. Sharp, a self-employed cab driver, is expected to be charged with one count of murder and two counts of attempted murder -- rare violent crimes in what regularly ranks as one of nation's safest large cities.
The harrowing attack at the Hillcrest Park Apartments began about 9:30 p.m. in the first-floor unit where the boy lived with his mother, Sandra Ruiz, 33. Sharp and Ruiz had been arguing, at least in part, about whether Sev'n spent too much time playing video games, neighbors said.
After the boy burst from the apartment into the communal courtyard, witnesses said, Sharp followed him, wielding the cleaver, and began hacking at the child's head and shouting, "Die, die!"
Neighbors Patrick Bowman, 21, and his girlfriend, Christina Kindred, 18, heard screams and ran to the courtyard, where they stumbled on the frightening scene: Ruiz yelling for someone, anyone, to grab her son. Sev'n sitting beside Sharp, bleeding. Sharp brandishing the cleaver.
"When I tried to grab the kid, that's when [Sharp] grabbed him and pulled him closer and started flailing that knife like crazy," Bowman said. "He pulled the kid closer to him and started to beat and hack him with the knife."
Bowman narrowly missed being slashed. Terrified, he and Kindred ran back to her apartment, where they dialed 911, then returned to the courtyard.
"When we ran upstairs, the kid was alive. When we got back out, the kid was dead," Bowman said Monday. "I feel horrible."
Ruiz tried to save her son, but Sharp allegedly turned the cleaver on her, cutting the woman repeatedly and nearly severing one of her hands. At that point, an older woman who also lived in the complex ran outside and tackled the assailant, knocking the bloody weapon away and getting cut in the face.
