JEALOUS RAGE PROMPTED 911 CALL, WIFE SAYS.

Byline: Michael Coit Daily News Staff Writer

The wife of a Meiners Oaks man charged with killing a Ventura County sheriff's deputy on a domestic disturbance call testified Tuesday that the defendant showed a jealous streak in the weeks before the July slaying.

In sometimes tearful testimony during a preliminary hearing, Guillermina Alonso said she has rarely lived with Michael Johnson during their 11-year marriage. The two resumed an intimate relationship this year and had been staying together at the home where Deputy Peter Aguirre was slain.

Alonso answered ``yes'' when asked if Johnson had been jealous.

``I remember that he was mad, angry, and I said, `What happened to you?' and he did not want to tell me. And he said that he was jealous,'' Alonso said, speaking through a Spanish-language interpreter.

Ventura County prosecutors called Alonso as a witness to reveal the couple's strained relationship and to show why she asked deputies for help when they arrived at her home July 17 in response to an emergency 911 call made by her daughter.

Johnson, 49, is charged with shooting Aguirre three times - including two lethal wounds through the brain - and firing on a second deputy during a gunfight at the Encinal Avenue home in Meiners Oaks.

Johnson has pleaded not guilty to five charges, including charges that he kidnapped and raped his wife the same day. Prosecutors also charge that Johnson killed Aguirre while committing a kidnapping and intentionally killing the deputy while he was performing his duties. If convicted of either special circumstance, Johnson would be eligible for the death penalty or life in prison without parole.

During the preliminary hearing, Johnson's public defenders have maintained that he shot Aguirre after the deputy entered the home illegally. The defense also contends that Johnson suffers from a Vietnam War-related mental illness that led him to act irrationally.

Judge Edward Brodie will decide at the conclusion of the preliminary hearing what charges Johnson will face at trial.

Prosecutors relied on testimony from an investigator for the county District Attorney's Office to show that Johnson shot Aguirre after the deputy removed Alonso from the home and stood in the doorway, with his gun still fastened in its holster.

Alonso's daughter had called the Sheriff's Department for help, stating that Johnson was armed with two guns and had talked of robbing a bank.

During her testimony, Alonso said she and Johnson met 13 or 14 years ago and married in 1985. She said the couple split several months later and only resumed an intimate relationship after she helped him enroll at Oxnard College.

For nearly a year before the shooting, Johnson worked as an unpaid resident manager at a rehabilitation center for people recovering from mental illness and substance abuse. Johnson had given notice he would be leaving, apparently after reconciling with his wife.

Johnson, who was studying to be a drug and alcohol abuse counselor, continued to live in Ventura. Alonso said they spent nights together at the home she rented, where he did work including painting and repairing the kitchen.

Prosecutors have said the dispute on the day of the shooting was sparked by Johnson's jealousy of her daughter's boyfriend, who had been living with the family.