Mark Adam Prentice, of 308 N. Julian, was arrested on a warrant at 11 a.m. Wednesday at a local gas station while fueling his car. He is in the Jackson County Jail on $1 million bond charged with shooting with intent to kill Benny Ceniceros, 41, at about 3:16 a.m. Sept. 6 in the back yard of Ceniceros' home at 702 S. Julian.
According to an affidavit filed Dec. 15 in District Court and signed by Altus Police Detective David Meadows, based on a police report filed Sept. 6, police officers investigated a shooting in the 700 block of South Julian Street early that morning, and upon arrival found Benny Ceniceros lying in the back yard of 702 S. Julian bleeding from the
chest.
The single bullet struck Ceniceros in the right hand then traveled through his hand into the upper right portion of his chest, exiting through the upper right part of his back.
Police learned during an investigation of the crime scene that the shooter was firing at the three people in the back yard at the time -- Benny Ceniceros, his brother, Guadalupe Ceniceros, 45, and Scott Neighbors, 33.
Neighbors was slightly wounded in the foot in the shooting, but refused treatment. On Sept. 7, Guadalupe Ceniceros was shot in the buttocks at 11:25 p.m in the parking lot of the Smoke Shop on East Broadway.
Guadalupe Ceniceros and Neighbors stated that the shots had come from the house of Lanny Morgan, 35, two houses to the north at 608 S. Julian on Labor Day morning. Morgan was later arrested Sept. 20 on four felony counts: possession of a controlled dangerous substance within 2,000 feet of a school/park with intent to distribute, knowingly concealing stolen property, unlawful use of a police radio and possession of firearms after a conviction.
Further investigation revealed that shots on Sept. 6 had been fired from two directions -- north to south and northwest to southeast. Witnesses said they heard single gunshots, then in rapid succession.
One witness stated that when he heard the gunshots he stepped onto his front porch and saw two Hispanic males running across his yard, and one of the men pointed a gun at him, then the two ran westbound on the railroad right-of-way north of his residence.
A witness identified as James Petty, 34, who was at Lanny Morgan's house when the shots were fired, said the shots sounded as though they had been fired from a machine gun.
In the daylight hours, police found 27 9 mm casings in the grass at the northeast corner of a vacant residence at 618 S. Julian, the only residence that divides Guadalupe Ceniceros' residence and that of Lanny Morgan.
A lab analysis done by the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation determined that 26 of the casings were fired by the same firearm -- any of various models made by Heckler and Koch.
In an interview with a confidential informant, Bob Carder, director of the District III Drug Task Force, learned that Prentice had delivered a quantity of methamphetamine to the informant at his South Julian address on Sept. 6, and that James Petty and he were at the address when Prentice and John Paul Salomon walked up to the residence to meet with them.
Prentice was carrying a weapon, which the informant identified as an automatic MP5 machine gun. The informant watched as Prentice and Salomon took up positions, then heard "a large amount of automatic gunfire" coming from the area.
The Heckler and Koch MP5 is capable of firing either in semi-automatic or automatic mode. John Paul Salomon, 24, of 502 W. Cypress, was arrested Oct. 6 by Altus police at a home at 609 Lila St., where he was hiding, jailed and charged with shooting with intent to kill. Benny Ceniceros was arrested just before midnight Oct. 5, charged with shooting at an Altus police officer.
James Petty's body was found at 8:24 a.m. Nov. 12 off the road near an intersection of South County Road 203 and East County Road 166, the victim of multiple gunshot wounds.
When asked if Prentice is a suspect in Petty's Nov. 12 shooting death, OSBI spokeswoman Jessica Brown said, "We do not identify suspects until charges are filed and an arrest is made."
Diana Garcia, 28, of Olustee is in Jackson County Jail on $2 million bond as a material witness in the homicide.
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