Oak View

In a stunning turnaround on the eve of trial, murder defendant David Alvarez admitted Friday to strangling Oak View teen Kali Manley and prosecutors agreed to drop the remaining charges against him. The plea agreement, reached after days of behind-the-scenes negotiations, gives Alvarez a glimmer of hope of being released from prison someday.

Two women told prosecutors that homicide suspect David Alvarez repeatedly raped them when they were teenagers, and prosecutors hope the stories, though never reported to police, can be retold to jurors in the defendant's upcoming murder trial. Deputy Atty. Gen. Michael Katz submitted audiotape interviews with the women to Judge Rebecca Riley on Tuesday.

The parents of slain Oak View teen Kali Manley filed a wrongful-death lawsuit Friday against the 23-year-old Ojai man accused of strangling their daughter last December. The lawsuit--filed in Ventura County Superior Court a day before the one-year statute of limitations expired--accuses murder defendant David Alvarez of causing the girl's death.

Re "Bicyclists Celebrate Completion of River Trail," Oct. 10. Like many avid bicyclists, I am excited about the opening of the new six-mile stretch of the Ventura River Trail linking the Ojai Valley with the coast. Presumably, now I will have a safe and comfortable ride down from my home in Oak View to the beach, right? Wrong. As any serious bicyclist will tell you, bicycling on the Ojai Valley Trail is anything but safe and comfortable. Although I stay to the far right of the trail, use hand signals and alert upcoming pedestrians and other cyclists to my presence well in advance, I find myself in some sort of dangerous or uncomfortable situation almost every time I ride.

Walter A. Stinnett, a retired Southern California Gas Co. employee, died at Community Memorial Hospital in Ventura on Wednesday. He was 71. Born on Feb. 9, 1928, in Oklahoma, he moved with his family to Wasco, Calif., and later graduated from high school. Stinnett was a resident of Oak View for 35 years and had retired from the gas company in Goleta. During the last 10 years of his career, he worked in the cathodic protection department.

Re "County Must Settle Scouts' Land Fight," Ventura County editorials, Oct. 3. Old Creek Ranch and Winery is located at the end of Old Creek Road. The property was originally part of a Spanish land grant. For 100 years this was a cattle ranch, vineyards and a winery. Today it is the same. We have six tenants living on our property, including the foreman and the cellar master. One of our tenants is due to have a baby this month and another is 2 years old. Recently, Tres Condados Girl Scout Council Inc., under the leadership of Cynder Sinclair, has denied our right to pass through the camp when the county of Ventura closes Old Creek Road due to flooding.

Adding to his legal troubles, murder defendant David Alvarez has been arrested on suspicion of misdemeanor battery for allegedly punching a fellow jail inmate. Authorities say the incident occurred Saturday afternoon at Ventura County's main jail in Ventura, where Alvarez is being held without bail on charges he strangled and attempted to rape a 14-year-old Oak View girl last December. "While he was being moved from one cell to another, he ran and attacked another inmate worker," Cmdr.

The state attorney general's office said Wednesday it will not seek the death penalty for murder suspect David Alvarez, who is accused of raping and strangling 14-year-old Kali Manley last December. Instead, prosecutors will try to persuade a jury to send the 22-year-old Ojai resident to prison for life without the chance of parole.