Coroner Confirms Vocational Student Shot in Back by Deputy

PORT HUENEME — Ventura County coroner officials confirmed Tuesday that a 26-year-old vocational student was shot once in the back by an off-duty sheriff’s deputy responding to what he thought was a burglary on a residential street near Bubbling Springs Park this weekend.

Jack Dale Sexton of Oxnard was mortally wounded about 9 p.m. Sunday by Senior Deputy Steven Lengyel, an eight-year veteran who works as a detective in the Fillmore station, officials said.

Lengyel confronted Sexton while going to the aid of 81-year-old Lillian Folk, a widow who lives across street from the deputy’s home on Evergeen Lane, officials said.

But Sexton’s family has said the vocational school student was no burglar, and was probably just looking for a phone to use after wrecking his car in a nearby ditch.

Officials from the Port Hueneme Police Department released few new details of the incident Tuesday, saying they did not want to hamper the investigation by giving information to the media. The department still has not explained what prompted Lengyel to fire his weapon.

Police also would not say whether Sexton was armed or if he ever entered the widow’s home, before he was shot.

However, Port Hueneme Police Chief John Hopkins and Sheriff Larry Carpenter have scheduled a news conference this morning.

In accordance with department policy, Lengyel remained on administrative leave Tuesday pending the outcome of an investigation into the shooting, said Capt. Mark Ball, a spokesman for the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department.

Detectives from the Sheriff’s Department as well as officials from the district attorney’s office are participating in the probe, which is considered routine in any deputy-involved shooting, Ball said.

On Tuesday, detectives continued to canvass the neighborhood where Sexton was shot, re-interviewing witnesses and talking to neighbors.

“We want to make sure we don’t miss anything,” said Lt. Fernando Estrella, a department spokesman.

After he was shot, Sexton apparently ran down a sidewalk along Evergreen Lane and either collapsed or was tackled in a driveway two houses down from the widow, where he eventually died, Estrella said.

Sexton’s family said Monday that the former Oxnard High baseball player had attended a Super Bowl party before the incident and was on his way home. The man who hosted the party would not comment Tuesday on Sexton’s condition when he left the party.

Sexton apparently crashed his black Volkswagen Jetta into a ditch in Bubbling Springs Park, police said, and family members believe he was knocking on the widow’s back door so that he could use her phone.

Police though are treating the case as a possible burglary. They are also investigating the shooting to determine if there was a crime committed, according to Estrella.

“We’re not ruling anything out,” he said. “We’re conducting a criminal investigation and will turn over what we learn to the district attorney’s office, and they will decide whether a crime was committed and who committed it.”

Folk, the widow who said Sexton was breaking into her house, said investigators spent four hours in her home Tuesday photographing each room and taking various measurements.

“I don’t think people realize that [Sexton] was in my house,” she said. Although Folk saw someone banging on her door, she said she did not actually see Sexton enter the house.