A Lancaster man will spend the rest of his life in a California prison after admitting that he gunned down four people inside their home, set the building on fire and left three dogs to burn to death in a killing spree motivated by a breakup, prosecutors said.<\/p>\n
Miguel Diego Sandoval, 21, pleaded guilty to multiple counts of murder, attempted murder, animal cruelty, arson and evidence destruction Thursday morning as dozens of his victims\u2019 loved ones looked on tearfully from the gallery of a downtown Los Angeles courtroom. <\/p>\n
Prosecutors and the victims relatives\u2019 said Sandoval broke into the Lancaster home intending to target his former partner, who wasn\u2019t home. Wearing a mask, Sandoval instead shot his ex\u2019s brother and sister, 24-year-old Janvi Maquindang and 29-year-old Christine Aca-ac, while they were in their beds. He then killed their significant others \u2014 Edwin Garcia, 24, Matthew Montebello, 23 \u2014 before setting fire to the home, leaving three of the family\u2019s dogs to burn alive. <\/p>\n
Maquindang managed to escape the fire but died of his injuries at an area hospital. Garcia and Aca-ac \u201cpleaded for their lives and he shot them anyway,\u201d according to Jennifer Calhoun, the mother of Montebello\u2019s best friend.<\/p>\n
Sandoval\u2019s ex, Dillon Maquindang, stood at a podium Thursday morning and decried the defendant for cheating on them, manipulating them and taking out his failures on Maquindang\u2019s family. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou changed my life in ways I never asked for. But you did not take away my ability to live, to love and to find happiness again,\u201d Dillon said. \u201cI hate that I\u2019m giving you this much of my energy today … My family deserves to be remembered for who they were, not how they died.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dillon\u2019s younger sister, Tahnya, was hiding in the home behind a locked door as Sandoval went on his rampage, according to the lead prosecutor on the case, L.A. County Deputy Dist. Atty. Alexander Bott. <\/p>\n
Sandoval admitted to the brutal killing spree in a recorded jailhouse conversation, Bott said.<\/p>\n
Speaking in court Thursday, Tahnya dismissed Sandoval as a \u201ccoward.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re too pathetic to deal with your own emotions, that you had to plan something as miserable as this,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Sandoval sat forward as his victims\u2019 relatives spoke, looking toward the L.A. County Superior Court Judge Charlaine Olmedo rather than the people he\u2019d wronged. The gallery was filled with the victims\u2019 relatives, many of them wearing white T-shirts emblazoned with a picture of the victims and the phrase \u201cforever in our hearts.\u201d<\/p>\n
While his sentencing was delayed to a later date, Sandoval can only receive life without the possibility of parole or the death penalty under California law. The district attorney\u2019s office did not seek capital punishment in the case. <\/p>\n
Staring at the back of Sandoval\u2019s head, Calhoun said the devastation he wrought on the night of the murder has reverberated for years since.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt continues through every nightmare, every memory, every smell of smoke,\u201d she said. \u201cEvery birthday that will never be celebrated.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Lancaster man will spend the rest of his life in a California prison after admitting that he…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":998802,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5123],"tags":[1582,276,24655,235932,246,5025,316,400093,2961,74843,224,5337,400091,9620,3546,6617,400090,6613,7307,400092],"class_list":["post-998801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-ca","tag-california","tag-dog","tag-ex","tag-family","tag-fire","tag-home","tag-jennifer-calhoun","tag-la","tag-life-sentence","tag-los-angeles","tag-losangeles","tag-maquindang","tag-murder","tag-people","tag-prosecutor","tag-sandoval","tag-sister","tag-victim","tag-victim-relative"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/998801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=998801"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/998801\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/998802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=998801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=998801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=998801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}