Countywide : Family Sues Mobil Oil, Suspect in Man’s Death

The wife and children of a Chino man shot and killed during a Mobil Oil Co. training session last year in Brea filed a wrongful death lawsuit Thursday against a co-worker charged with the slaying.

Janice Dawkins and her two children are suing Rudy Vibangco Terrenal for unspecified damages in connection with the Oct. 30, 1993, slaying of David Dawkins. The suit also names Mobil Oil Corp., which employed both men, as a defendant.

Terrenal, 57, is awaiting trial in Orange County Superior Court on charges that he killed Dawkins, 44, and tried to kill co-worker Steven Bowling of Lakewood, who was injured in the shooting. Terrenal has pleaded not guilty.

The three men worked as instrument technicians at a Mobil Oil refinery in Torrance and were attending a training course on hazardous materials in Brea when the shooting occurred in a parking lot. Co-workers said Dawkins was a supervisor and a 22-year veteran with Mobil Oil, and Bowling worked at the company for more than a decade. Police said at the time that Terrenal agreed to go to the training session after learning the other two would be there.