The Iraq war veteran indicted in the murders of four homeless men and two others during a three-month killing spree told an Anaheim detective after his arrest in January that he joined the Marine Corps to be become a killer, according to court documents obtained by The Orange County Register.

But Itzcoatl “Izzy” Ocampo, 23, said he was disappointed when he did not see any combat during a six-month tour of duty in Iraq when he “became a truck driver instead of a killer,” according to a transcript of a secret hearing of the Orange County grand jury.

See the serial killings story in photos.

“He felt in order to become a real Marine, he needed to kill,” testified Detective Daron Wyatt, a lead detective on the serial killer task force who took Ocampo’s confession a few hours after he was arrested following the stabbing death Jan. 13 of the fourth homeless man outside a Carl’s Jr. fast-food restaurant in Anaheim.

Ocampo told Wyatt that he had planned to continue killing people and hoped to build a kill list with 16 names before he was finished, according to the transcript.

“He said he needed to keep killing,” Wyatt told the grand jury. “And he actually had predesigned that he was going to select 16 victims. … He told me that Charles Whitman (the Texas Tower killer) had killed 16 people. … And that Charles Whitman had been a Marine.”

Wyatt was the last of six witnesses called to the stand during the secret grand jury proceeding Feb. 16.

Grand jurors then deliberated for a short time after listening to a passionate summation by Deputy District Attorney Susan Price. The panel quickly returned an indictment charging Ocampo, 23, of Yorba Linda, with the unprovoked stabbing deaths of the four homeless men and the stabbing deaths of a Yorba Linda woman and her adult son on Oct. 25, 2011, an attack that was initially blamed on the woman’s youngest son.

Ocampo was also charged with the special circumstances of committing multiple murders and committing murders by lying in wait. If convicted, those penalty-enhancing allegations will result in a minimum sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.

DEATH PENALTY POSSIBLE



The District Attorney’s Office could decide later to seek the death penalty.

Ocampo, who was honorably discharged from the Marine Corps in 2010, has pleaded not guilty to all charges. His trial is tentatively scheduled for Sept. 10 before Superior Court Judge Francisco Briseno.

The grand jury transcript reveals that Ocampo confessed to all six killings and said he deserves the death penalty.

Ocampo told Wyatt during one lengthy interrogation after he waived his right to remain silent that he killed the four homeless men because “he felt that he was somewhat doing a service to the community, because the homeless population had become a blight to the community.”

Wyatt also testified that Ocampo said he chose his victims “because they were available and vulnerable.”

Brea police detective Phillip Rodriguez testified before the grand jury that Ocampo also confessed to stabbing Raquel Estrada, 54, and her oldest son Juan Carlos Herrera, 34, to death in their home in Yorba Linda in October because they were disrespectful to him, according to the transcript.

Ocampo acknowledged that he had been longtime friends with Eder Herrera, Estrada’s youngest son, until a few months before the Oct. 25, 2011, slayings and had been to the Herrera house on occasion. Ocampo told Rodriguez that Estrada and Herrera sometimes wouldn’t greet him and “seemed to have an attitude,” according to the transcript.

Rodriquez also testified that Ocampo was upset when his friendship with Eder Herrera ended, and he “decided he was going to kill them” – including Eder Herrera. The detective said Ocampo told him he planned to make it look like Eder Herrera was the killer who later committed suicide.

But Eder Herrera left the house on the night Ocampo committed to his plan.

Eder Herrera was arrested the next morning and charged with murdering his mother and brother after detectives reported he was acting strangely. Eder Herrera was released from custody in mid-February after Ocampo was indicted. An investigation into Eder Herrera’s possible involvement in the slayings is ongoing.

HEARD DYING GASPS



The grand jury transcript also reveals:

• Ocampo described how “he could feel the life come out of (the victims),” according to Wyatt’s testimony. “And on a couple of occasions when he had stabbed them in the throat, (he) actually heard their breath leaving their bodies,” Wyatt testified.

• Wyatt testified that Ocampo told him that prior to all of the attacks “he would look at Penthouse magazine to pump himself up.”

• Ocampo also claimed that he did not necessarily feel bad about the killings, although “he wished that they rested in peace,” Wyatt testified. “He did say that he felt it had to be done.”

• Wyatt described how Ocampo claimed he studied the human anatomy to find out the best way to kill. “He said he specifically targeted the throat to kill people, to sever the esophagus,” Wyatt testified. “That he (also) targeted the head, because he had seen in the movie ‘Terminator 2’ that it was a quick kill.”

• Ocampo claimed that his family knew nothing of his involvement in the serial killings, although his mother “had actually joked with him before he was caught that maybe he was the murderer,” Wyatt testified.

• Ocampo was also “interested in murder in general,” Wyatt told the grand jury. “There were some documents seized from his house about notorious killers,” Wyatt testified. “And he also talked about Lee Harvey Oswald and some other murder … suspects.”

Wyatt also told the grand jury that he noticed that as Ocampo was describing each of the murders during the interrogation, his demeanor would change.

“He seemed to get excited when he was talking about the actual kill,” Wyatt testified. “So, I asked him if he was aroused by the act of killing.”

Ocampo at first questioned the word arousal, according to the transcript, but then added, “my balls felt like they were going to explode, and I knew that I had the killer gene.”

Contact the writer: lwelborn@ocregister.com or 714-834-3784