Migrant Worker Gets 7 Years for 1979 Bar Slayings

A migrant farm worker was sentenced Wednesday to seven years and four months in prison for shooting two men in a North Hollywood bar seven years ago.

San Fernando Superior Court Judge Robert D. Fratianne imposed the sentence on Victor Manuel Elenes, 42, who pleaded guilty in July to two counts of voluntary manslaughter in the April, 1979, shooting inside Felix Bar on the 11600 block of Sherman Way.

The owner of the bar, Felix Acosta Campos, 40, and a patron, Porfilio Alatorre, 27, a Mexican national, were killed by a single shot fired from a .38-caliber semiautomatic handgun that Elenes kept in a boot, authorities said. The bullet passed through Campos’ chest and struck Alatorre in the neck, according to a probation report.

The shooting occurred as Campos and Elenes moved toward a fight that broke out among other patrons inside the bar. Elenes said the gun fired when it fell from his boot to the floor, but witnesses said he pulled the weapon and pointed it, Deputy Dist. Atty. Kenneth L. Barshop said.

Elenes fled after the shooting and remained a fugitive until he was arrested on a murder warrant April 4 as he attempted to cross the border from Mexico into the United States, the probation report said.