By Brian Anderson
Valley Times

Aug. 3, 2001

OAKLAND — Rodrigo Cortez blasted Thomas Wheelock with a barrage of obscenities in the hours before the veteran armored car guard was shot dead, witnesses testified Thursday, bolstering a theory that Wheelock "flipped out" just before the 1997 killing.

As defense lawyers launched into the first day of presenting their case, one former Union Bank worker called to the witness stand said Cortez was berating Wheelock with such fury that he feared being caught in a gunfight.

"I heard him say, 'What the (expletive) is wrong with you?'" testified Michael Cooper, a 17-year Union Bank employee at the time of the shooting. "It made me nervous because I never heard anybody yelling at anybody like that. I didn't know if someone would get ticked off and start shooting right at the door."

Cooper said Wheelock muttered a swear word of his own as Cortez walked away.

About an hour later, Wheelock, now 24, and Cortez, 30, rolled into the Brinks facility behind schedule. Customer service representative Debra Vincent said on the stand Thursday that she chastised them for being late, for which Wheelock took the blame.

Cortez scolded Wheelock for openly accepting blame, defense attorneys Michael Ogul and Bob Mertens contend. The pair argued as the armored truck Cortez was driving slowly moved toward the gate at the Oakland Brinks facility.

Wheelock, who later told police that he "flipped out," pulled out a 9 mm handgun and shot Cortez three times, killing the Pittsburg father.

He drove the armored car to his hometown of San Ramon, where he ditched it behind an auto parts store before heading to Sacramento with his friend Peter York. There he bought a Ford Bronco and drove north on Interstate 5, leaving nearly all of the $300,000 he had taken from the armored car in a motel room.

But about 15 miles south of Red Bluff, the Bronco broke down.

California Highway Patrol Officer Richard Barr testified Thursday that he spotted Wheelock walking away from the truck and stopped to lend a hand. He said that a major accident lured him away and only later did he discover Wheelock was on the run.

"I sat there and said, 'Oh, man, that was him,'" Barr said, recalling the encounter.

Wheelock was later arrested in Utah and returned to California, where he was indicted on a murder charge and special circumstances that could garner the death penalty if he is convicted.

Ogul and Mertens acknowledge Wheelock killed Cortez, but proving he snapped after constant verbal abuse could persuade jurors to spare their client from a death sentence.

Assistant district attorney James Anderson, who wrapped up his case Wednesday, has said Wheelock planned the shooting and robbery, going so far as to write down his plan in a "manifesto." Wheelock, Anderson said, simply did not act in the spur of the moment.

"If they don't think it was a robbery (and) murder, then I have picked a pretty nearsighted jury," Anderson said.