Cynthia Cdebaca

A prosecutor said a 63-year-old grandmother reloaded her five-shot revolver twice and fired 15 rounds at her son-in-law, killing him in the home they shared in Fallbrook last week.

The prosecutor spoke on February 18 at the arraignment of Cynthia Kaye Cdebaca, who is accused of killing 53-year-old Geoward Flores Eustaquio.

602 Braemar Terrace

The grandmother lived with her daughter’s family in a residence attached to a larger home at 602 Braemar Terrace, which is in an upscale, gated community. The daughter and two grandchildren had all left by 8 a.m. that Tuesday morning, February 11, before the shooting.

According to prosecutor Tracy Prior, the elderly woman was walking downstairs toward her son-in-law when he made a comment about what she was wearing, “something about her clothing”; that’s when the woman turned around and went back upstairs for her pistol, the prosecutor said.

“She pointed that gun and she fired five rounds,” Prior said in a crowded courtroom. “She realized, as he was starting to fall, that he is not dead.” So, Cdebaca, who is described in sheriff's records as 5 foot 6 inches tall and 250 pounds, went out to her car parked in the driveway to get more ammunition.

“She shot five more rounds at her son-in-law. She recognized that he’s still not dead,” the prosecutor went on. “So she went back a second time to her car, unloaded the five casings, reloaded five more casings, and walked back.” The prosecutor claimed that Eustaquio was still moving at this point.

“He was trying to lock the door behind him, get some help.” But according to the prosecutor, the determined mother-in-law fired one shot through the door and then, “As he bled on the floor, she stood over him and shot four more shots into the deceased.”

The prosecutor said that after first denying any knowledge of the incident, Cdebaca did admit to investigators that she “was responsible” for the death of her son-in-law.

Cdebaca told detectives “she did not like him” and that he “better be dead” and “that if he were here, she would kill him again.” The suspect complained that her son-in-law did not work and that he made her daughter work, according to the prosecutor.

Cdebaca told investigators that she had tossed the gun into a nearby drainage ditch, where it was recovered.

“The defendant then went to Denny’s for breakfast, she went to Pechanga for gambling, she went to the liquor store for cigarettes, and she went to her favorite coffee shop to end her day,” the prosecutor told a judge.

Judge “Million Dollar Marshall” Hockett set bail at $5 million.

Seven bullets were recovered from the body of 53-year-old Geoward Eustaquio; some of the gunshot wounds reportedly entered and exited his body.

“The defendant committed this murder on her 63rd birthday”; when the prosecutor said this, the defendant nodded in affirmation. “She bought the gun two weeks ago, and she’s been planning it,” the prosecutor alleged.

Cdebaca pleaded not guilty to first-degree, premeditated murder. Her next court date is set for February 27 in San Diego’s North County Superior Courthouse.