Luis Antonio Trujillo, 34, Donnie Jack Massett, 32, and Elaina Lynn Paramore, 32, are all charged with murder for benefit of a street gang in connection with a killing in 2011. There was a hearing …

Fallbrook gang member Christopher Flores was convicted of attempted murder and sentenced to 30 years to life plus another 20 years in state prison on Monday, December 1. The total years were compounded because of …

Fifty-three-year-old Katherine Ann Heinzel, a former cop who was convicted of gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated, is due in San Diego Superior Court again on Monday, November 24. Heinzel is said to have been a …

“There was never anything pre-meditated to murder this girl — I was driving the vehicle when this happened,” said Destin Lee Withers, 38, before he was sentenced to life in prison on November 18. The …

Rene Sanchez, now 23 years old, was found guilty of shooting a man to death at a Halloween party in Escondido seven years ago; the verdict was announced late yesterday, November 19. Sanchez was 16 …

Vista resident Gregory Dwight Smith, 47, was given credit for time already served and ordered into three years of formal probation in San Diego Superior Court on November 13. Smith began his criminal history when …

On November 5, Robert Oldham Young of Valley Center was ordered to face six felony charges, including practicing medicine without a license and grand theft by fraud at the end of a three-week preliminary hearing. …

A 20-year-old Fallbrook gangster was sentenced to life in prison, plus 25 years, in San Diego Superior Court on November 7. Judge Blaine Bowman spoke to Sergio Huerta Ramirez, telling him to notice that none …

After Bryan Chang admitted killing his mother, four years later, the question became: was he crazy when he killed her? This morning, November 6, after a three-week trial, a jury declared that Chang was sane …

In the second week of a sanity trial for admitted murderer Bryan Chang, 33, jurors heard testimony from the doctor who performed the autopsy on his mother, a computer expert who gathered email evidence, and …

The attorney for 56-year-old Jeffrey Barton, former administrator at the Army Navy Academy in Carlsbad, abruptly cancelled a bail hearing on Friday, October 24, immediately after a judge said he would allow news cameras to …

A man accused of wheeling his deceased girlfriend down the street in a shopping cart to dump her body near a trash bin was found guilty of first-degree murder this week. Kirk Leon Stapleton, 54, …

An attorney in Virginia who stated that he represented PETA for more than 30 years, Philip J. Hirschkop, responded to questions about a multimillion-dollar civil suit filed in San Diego County last week by attorneys …

The young man had delusions that his mother was “destroying him” so he had to “destroy her,” according to a defense attorney who spoke at the beginning of a sanity-murder-trial yesterday afternoon, October 21. Bryan …

Two attorneys for an elderly Vista woman who filed a lawsuit claiming defamation and one attorney responding for the PETA Foundation were in court today, October 16. The attorneys for Lurlie Adams, who sold her …

New details about a million-dollar scam perpetrated by a Carlsbad man will be revealed at a preliminary hearing early next year, according to a statement by prosecutor Anna Winn on October 14. Dennis Eugene Long, …

Even though a jury acquitted her of first-degree murder at the end of a trial two weeks ago, Carlsbad housewife Julie Harper could still face the possibility of 40 years in prison if she is …

Louis Ray Perez, 48, Dorothy Gracemarie Maraglino, 39, and Jessica Lynn Lopez, 27, were all in court on Friday, October 10. The defendants deny all accusations pertaining to the kidnapping, torturing, and murder of a …

Frank Brauns, 43, denies hammering and stabbing his wife after an argument two weeks ago in Escondido. On October 7, he was listening to testimony against him at a preliminary hearing in San Diego Superior …

This morning, October 7, in San Diego Superior Court, a Los Angeles man admitted murdering his mother in her million-dollar Solana Beach home nearly five years ago. Brian Chang, now 33, pleaded guilty to first-degree …

Diego Arturo Martinez, who was acquitted of murder and attempted murder at the end of a trial three months ago, had new charges filed against him in court on Tuesday, September 30. During a three-week …

Michael Vincent Young, 57, was sentenced to six years prison on September 30 for killing his brother Robb “without malice.” Young told investigators that tension had been building for a long time between he and …

Julie Harper was declared not guilty of first-degree murder in the shooting death of her husband Jason, in court today, October 1, 2014. The defendant’s parents, John and Donna Cihak, were in the courtroom to …

Forty-one-year-old accused murderer Julie Harper was in the witness box all day yesterday, September 24. She said she began the morning of August 7, 2012, with another argument with her husband; he was angry, she …

After a court hearing on September 19, it was concluded that 29-year-old David Leroy Lucero, arrested on suspicion of killing his mother more than four years ago, should be confined to a psychiatric hospital. “The …

The father of accused murderer Julie Harper said it was “the worst day of my life” when his daughter showed up to his office and told him that she had shot her husband. “She said, …

Four neighbors testified that they heard gunshots at about 8 a.m. the morning of February 11, 2014, in a quiet residential area of Fallbrook. One of the 911 calls was played in court on September …

Julie Harper killed her husband Jason with a two-shot derringer that her father had given her for self-protection when she was going to college in the 1990s, according to her attorney who spoke to jurors …

In court on September 3, there were many hints that a Carlsbad housewife accused of murder would take the witness box in her own defense during her upcoming trial. Julie Elizabeth Harper, now 41, is …

An Oceanside man who murdered the mother of his two children and then hid her body under the bed was sentenced to 26 years to life in prison today, August 26. Last month, a jury …

“They just said you’re not allowed to drink around us, so I just said, ‘Fine,’” Greg Foley recalled. “I just didn’t let them know that I was drinking because it would upset them.” He just …

There are many bright blooms and small, pale pumpkins underneath the broad leaves of the pumpkin plants on the 100-acre Bates Nut Farm in August. On a recent weekend, a man who identified himself as …

Arson charges against Alberto Serrato, 57, were dismissed in San Diego Superior Court on August 13. Serrato had been accused of re-igniting a brush fire three months ago, while fires raged across North County. Serrato, …

A Los Angeles man accused of beating his mother to death in her million-dollar Solana Beach home more than four years ago is set to go on trial this month. Potential jurors are expected to …

“All the girls were ripping,” said 24-year-old Sara Taylor, who won her round during the first day of the 2014 Supergirl Pro, a three-day all-women’s surf competition in Oceanside on August 8, 2014. Taylor, who …

“I called my uncle Albert up, said, ‘Hey, there’s a fire over here, come check it out,’” Fernando Juarez testified for the defense during the trial of his uncle, Alberto Beltran Serrato, on August 6. …

Two Oceanside police officers testified during a trial today, August 5, that they saw a man put handfuls of dry brush onto a smoldering spot, twice, until the area re-ignited into flame. “I still remember …

Two reputed gang members, Roland Isaac Seau, 24, and David Lemoe Tua, 31, were ordered to face murder and attempted-murder charges after a multi-day hearing that ended late on Thursday, July 31. Both Seau and …

Gregory Dale Foley, 56, pleads not-guilty to the attempted murder of his 81-year-old mother and cruelty to his 86-year-old father, in a trial that began yesterday, July 29, 2014. The prosecutor played a chilling 911 …

Testimony began on July 17 in a trial for a man who admits being a street hood for the Varrio Fallbrook Locos gang. Some witnesses have been so fearful that they suffered almost complete memory …

Legal proceedings against a 63-year-old woman accused of reloading her five-shot revolver twice to finish killing her son-in-law were put on hold today, July 8. The attorney for Cynthia Kaye Cdebaca asked for the case …

A subpoenaed witness who refused to testify on July 7 was handcuffed and taken into custody at the start of a hearing in which four young men are accused of a double murder in connection …

On July 1, court observers were stunned when a jury declared an Oceanside man not guilty of two charges, even though the defendant took the witness box and admitted shooting two persons. The jury foreman …

A Vista man who admitted felony assault on a deputy — during a confrontation more than a year ago in which he ended up with a bullet in his chest — was sentenced to time …

When deputy Agustin Rostras asked Cirilo Arenas Velasco for his driver’s license on May 30, “He said his license was suspended,” according to Rostras. Then the officer asked Velasco for some form of ID and …

In opening statements to a jury on June 16, a defense attorney appeared to impugn the alleged murder victim, saying “everybody knew” the deceased was a drug dealer in the neighborhood and a “multi-convicted felon.” …

On June 16, a San Diego judge ordered six years in prison for a young man convicted of robbing his employer at an ATM machine, after a dispute over pay more than a year ago. …

After a trial that lasted one month, a jury declared both Jeffrey McCreary and Destin Lee Withers guilty of first-degree murder in the shooting death of Mayorama Denise Rodriguez, 20, more than two years ago. …

“After he killed her, I drove away with the body,” said Jeffrey McCreary while in the witness box this week. “That made me an accessory, afterward.” But McCreary said it was his codefendant who pulled …

“Mr. Vilkin protected himself,” said attorney Richard Berkon, speaking for a man accused of killing his neighbor. “This case was justified. It was self-defense.” Trial began yesterday, June 5, for an Encinitas man charged with …