As members of the Parraz family were executed one by one in a January pre-dawn ambush that saw six of them killed in and around the mess of trailers that made up their ramshackle compound, the likely target of the assassins behind the notorious Goshen massacre was already gone.
Martin Parraz, 47, who has the word ”CRAZYS” tattooed on his cheek and is better known by his street name, “Shooter,” had long since roared off on his Harley Davidson carrying 50 grams of methamphetamine that he intended to distribute, according to federal prosecutors, by 3:38 a.m. on Jan. 16, the time bullets began to explode on his family’s property.
He and his 52-year-old brother, Eladio Parraz, are confirmed members of the Sureños gang and had “funk” with his family’s accused killers, as the police report describes the Hatfield–McCoy-like bad blood between Parraz and one of the two men from the rival Norteños gang who stormed Parrazes abode, killing everyone they could find.
Eladio Parraz was the first to die, Tulare County investigators say, when he was fatally shot in the torso and in the leg; Eladio’s 19-year-old son Marcos Parraz died of a gunshot wound to the head; Jennifer Analla, 49, a longtime Shooter girlfriend, was forced to her knees and executed; the family matriarch, Rosa Parraz, 72, was shot dead in her sleep.
As gun blasts echoed behind her, Alissa Parraz, Shooter’s granddaughter, bolted from the house while clutching her 10-month-old baby boy, Nycholas. Desperately trying to save her infant’s life, she darted down a driveway. Her terrifying final moments before she was gunned down were caught on her family’s internal security surveillance video.
Tulare County Sheriff's Department
Tulare County Sheriff Mike Boudreaux was emotional, weeks after the slayings, as he described the death blows delivered to Alissa and Nycholas, who were the final two members of the Parraz clan to be killed that morning.
“She ran to the gate. She ran to the fence, protecting her child, and laid it on the other side of the fence. A young lady. A young mother. Jumped over the fence in an effort to save her life and her baby’s life. Alissa and Nycholas were both found dead in the street, shot in the back of the head.”
Hours after the merciless attack, Tulare County sheriffs and Drug Enforcement Administration agents were staking out a house where Martin Parraz had been spotted with a second girlfriend in Goshen, an unincorporated community of about 5000 outside of Visalia. They watched as he climbed off his Harley around 7:30 p.m. and entered the home, according to a probable cause affidavit.
Deputy Lucio Cobos followed his path and banged on the door, urging Shooter to come out. The gang member yelled back, “What do you want?” Cobos responded that investigators “wanted to speak with him regarding the recent crime,” referring to the grisly slayings that unfolded earlier that morning, according to the affidavit filed by DEA Agent Shawn Riley. Investigators report hearing a woman yelling and “unknown noises coming from the window,” in the kitchen.
Parraz opened the front door a short time later, the DEA agent wrote, at which point investigators moved in to arrest him. He “initially resisted and refused to put his hands behind his back,” according to the affidavit, and “removed his cell phone from his pocket and threw it towards his girlfriend.” He then compiled.
Detectives took Parraz into custody and obtained a search warrant to comb the house and vehicles on the property, the Harley and a Chrysler 300. A safety sweep of the woman’s house led to the recovery of Smith & Wesson revolver loaded with .38 special bullets in a warming drawer in the stove, where there was also a stash of ammunition.
Investigators recovered another 36 rounds found in passenger door jam in the Chrysler 300. In the trunk, there was a black duffle bag carrying a gallon-sized baggie of meth, according to the affidavit, which also references the discovery of a “Pyrex container” in a garage where he and the second girlfriend would stay with what appeared to be trace amounts of heroin.
Shooter is now facing federal charges of possession with intent to distribute 50 grams or more of methamphetamine and a mixture and substance containing a detectable amount of heroin; being a felon in possession of a firearm; and being a felon in possession of ammunition. He is being held at the Tulare County Jail, according to court records. Since 1997, he has been in and out of prison on a range of charges relating to guns and drugs, according to court records. Some of his convictions were connected to crimes prosecutors said he committed while serving prison time for other felonies.
Parraz had been wanted by authorities since Jan. 3, when, according to Tulare County sheriff deputies, they issued a warrant for his arrest after finding items that put him in violation of his recent parole. That parole compliance check came thirteen days before five members of his family, and his longtime lover, were methodically murdered. Shooter wasn’t home when deputies arrived to make sure he was adhering to his parole conditions so they spoke to his brother, Eladio, who was home with his girlfriend, Melissa Bailey.
At the compound, a deputy spotted 13 live rounds of ammunition in plain sight, a violation of Eladio Parraz’s parole, according to a police report.
“Eladio was asked if he had ever been to prison, and he advised that he had,” the report reads. The deputy asked if he was “still an active Sureño gang member and he stated he was,” according to the report. Deputies obtained a search warrant, and found meth pipes in his trailer, along with body armor in the closet, which felons are prohibited from owning. An “AR-style rifle” was allegedly stuffed under a mattress in Eladio’s trailer, along with a Ruger P89 handgun, and stockpiled ammunition. With that, Eladio Parraz was taken into custody for a parole violation. He was released days later on $60,000 bail.
The report notes “no contraband was located” in the trailer where Shooter lived, the one identified by his now late mother Rosa. The deputies were unmoved. They “contacted dispatch” and issued an arrest warrant for Shooter as a parole violator because of his “having access to the shed where rifle ammunition was located.”
When killers snuck onto his family’s property in the inky darkness on Jan. 16, Shooter was on the run from the law, and apparently, an old enemy: Angel “Nanu” Uriarte, 35, who has since been charged as the man captured on the Parraz security surveillance video entering the compound in a trench coat with Noah Beard, 25. The men, investigators say, were Norteños, rivals to the Parraz brothers’ gang.
Court records paint a picture of a blood feud between Shooter Parraz and Nanu Uriarte that stretched back decades in the small community in the San Joaquin Valley, a rundown area not far from the mountain ranges of Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks. A history of police calls to Goshen show a long-simmering hatred between the men, who lived within a block of one another, that brought allegations of drive-by shootings on both sides.
Uriarte, who has the letters “GF” for Goshen Familia tattooed on his face, pleaded no contest to firearm charges after a 2014 drive-by shooting witnesses said he carried out in retaliation for a move his neighbor Shooter made against him.. No one was hit, but Uriarte admitted to the crime and his gang affiliation, which landed him a seven-year prison sentence, according to court records. He ultimately served five years behind bars, law enforcement officials said.
Parraz had been accused of attacking Uriarte’s grandmother’s house years earlier with bullets blasted from a passing car. Both men had served long stints in California state prisons where Shooter’s gang answers to la eMe, or the Mexican Mafia, and Uriarte’s gang comes under the umbrella of protection from Nuestra Familia.
It’s not unusual for rival gangs to set up shop on the same block in the small towns that make up Tulare County, local prosecutor Deputy District Attorney David Alavezos told LAMag. What is unusual, however, is an entire family being targeted for cold-blooded execution, allegedly at the hands of their recognizable neighbors.
When Beard allegedly stalked Alissa and her baby down the driveway and into the street where prosecutors say he shot them dead, he was also a convicted felon wanted on an outstanding warrant in connection with a separate guns and drugs charge. That arrest came in October 2021 arrest at a Visalia motel, where Beard, a convicted felon, was sitting in a car with loaded weapon and cocaine, according to a Visalia Police report. Beard wasn’t formally charged with that case until late December, when a warrant was issued for his arrest—mere weeks before the brutal slayings. Alavezos blames the filing delay on California legislation that make it difficult for prosecutors to charge gun offenses without a firing test on the weapon and laws that make cocaine possession a misdemeanor
On the morning of Feb. 3, more than 100 Tulare County Sheriff’s Department detectives, officers and federal ATF agents executed search warrants at the homes of the suspects and several California prisons in a massive sweep dubbed “Operation Nightmare” targeting the gangs connected to the bloodshed. Beard was tracked to a tidy suburban cul-de-sac on South Noyes St. in Visalia and “arrested without incident,” Bordeaux told reporters.
Beard is now charged with a slew of charges connected to the Goshen massacre, and the October 2021 gun and cocaine charge. He pleaded not guilty to both cases and is being held without bail.
Tulare County Sheriffs Department
As Beard was arrested, a few miles away heavily-armed agents showed up on the 6600 Block of Ave. 308 in Goshen, where Uriarte was hiding. When cops arrived, investigators say, Uriarte took off running, then turned and fired at ATF agents. The agents returned fire hitting Uriarte in the torso. He was rushed to the hospital and underwent surgery. He is expected to survive and is also being held without bail.
Tulare County Sheriffs Department
All of it part of the systemic gang violence Alissa Parraz grew up in, and when she had her baby, lived amongst, in poverty-stricken Goshen.
Alissa’s father, Martin Parraz Jr., is also an admitted member of the Sureños gang; he’s been incarcerated in state prison since Oct. 2019 and is stated to be held until 2030.
The teen’s TikTok page is filled with heart-wrenching videos of her playing with Nycholas. But there is also one that highlights the poverty of choices Alissa grappled with growing up in the grip of gangs: a tribute to tough guys, her father, and grandfather, that reads, “When the cops find out who my dad and grandpa are.”
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