Berkeley Man Convicted For Fatal Shooting Of Man In International Blvd. Parking Lot

A Berkeley man who is already serving a term in federal prison for an armed bank robbery was convicted Thursday of second-degree murder for fatally shooting a man in East Oakland three years ago.

After deliberating for a day, jurors also convicted 27-year-old Calvin Odom of using a firearm to cause death and being an ex-felon in possession of a firearm in connection with the death of Vittorio Jackson, 37, in the 8900 block of International Boulevard at about 4:10 p.m. on March 31, 2013.

In his closing argument on Wednesday, prosecutor Warren Ko said Odom and Jackson got into an argument and “a scuffle escalated and ended with a shooting in the middle of the parking lot” of a Laundromat in an area he said is well-known for drug activity.

Referring to Odom, Ko told jurors, “This defendant gunned down Vittorio Jackson and the time has come to find him accountable.”

But Odom’s lawyer, Darryl Stallworth, said Odom should be found not guilty, saying that prosecution witnesses who identified Odom as the shooter weren’t credible and one witness actually identified another man as the shooter.

Odom was charged with being an ex-felon in possession of a firearm because prosecutors say he has three prior felony convictions for drug and illegal gun charges in Alameda County between 2007 and 2011.

In another case, Odom and co-defendant Craig Goatley pleaded guilty in January 2014 to armed bank robbery for stealing nearly $9,000 from a Citibank branch at 1526 Webster St. in Alameda on Aug. 3, 2013, more than four months after the fatal shooting of Jackson.

Federal authorities said Odom and Goatley were arrested on Aug. 14, 2013, after a high-speed chase in which they were in a stolen car that was driven by Goatley.

In April 2014, Odom was sentenced to 86 months in federal prison and Goatley was sentenced to 78 months. Odom wasn’t charged with murder for Jackson’s death until September 2014, 18 months after Jackson was shot.

Stallworth said Oakland police conducted 25 interviews while they were investigating the case and considered “several theories and several suspects” before Odom was finally charged. The defense lawyer said witness Harry Grayson testified at both Odom’s preliminary hearing and trial that Odom wasn’t the man who shot Jackson and during Odom’s trial he identified Kyal Porter as the shooter.

Porter, who was 24 at the time, was fatally shot while he was riding a bicycle in the 9800 block of A Street in East Oakland at about 5:30 a.m. on June 27, 2013. Stallworth said today that he’s “extremely disappointed” with the jury’s verdict because he believes the evidence in the case indicates that Odom couldn’t have been at the scene of the shooting in the Laundromat’s parking lot because he was in the stairwell of a nearby building at the time.

Stallworth also said he doesn’t think Odom matches the description of the shooter that was provided by the prosecution’s witnesses.

But Ko said, “The jury found enough consistencies between the witnesses’ testimony and the physical evidence in the case to reach the right conclusion,” which he said was that Odom was the shooter. Ko said he’s “happy” that Jackson’s family members, who attended every day of Odom’s trial, will now have some sense of closure.

The prosecutor said Jackson “hung out with the drug crowd but he was well-loved and didn’t deserve to be killed.”

Odom faces a term of 40 years to life in state prison when he’s sentenced by Alameda County Superior Court Judge C. Don Clay on March 24. Ko said Odom will complete his federal sentence before starting to serve his state sentence.

Previous:

• Berkeley Man Already Convicted of Alameda Bank Robbery is Charged with Murder
• Berkeley Man Sentenced to Prison for Alameda Bank Robbery
• Berkeley Man Pleads Guilty – Left Stickup Note with Fingerprints at Bank

--Bay City News