Andrea DelVesco, 21, a Texas native, was stabbed 19 times inside her apartment in 2015, authorities say. (Facebook)
A California man was sentenced Friday to life in prison, without parole, three years to the day he fatally stabbed a UCLA student and set her apartment ablaze.
Alberto Hinojosa Medina, 25, was convicted in May in the 2015 stabbing death of Andrea DelVesco, 21, a Texas native, along with arson, burglary and cruelty to an animal, the Los Angeles Times reported.
About a dozen friends of the victim read statements to the judge about how the brutal murder -- in which DelVesco was stabbed 19 times -- has affected their lives, the newspaper reported.
“This is the date that he made the choice to take my wonderful, amazing daughter’s life,” DelVesco’s mother Leslie said, according to NBC Southern California. “May his life, as he has known it, also end today.”
“I woke up early to the sound of helicopters,” friend Elizabeth Matusov said, recalling the day of the killing, according to the L.A. Times. “In that moment, the world I knew melted away.”
Medina, a Fresno resident, had burglarized another apartment before breaking into DelVesco’s apartment nearby and killing her. The animal cruelty charge stemmed from her dog being burned in the fire and eventually having to be euthanized.
"He brutally murdered a beautiful, innocent person. He seriously wounded an entire community. He must never walk free again.”
At his sentencing, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Mark Windham said Medina was too dangerous to ever be released, KTLA-TV of Los Angeles reported.
"He brutally murdered a beautiful, innocent person,” he said. “He seriously wounded an entire community. He must never walk free again.”
Medina’s accomplice, Eric Marquez, also 25 and a UCLA student, was sentenced to two years and eight months in prison on charges of burglary and being accessory after the fact.
The case resulted in the firing of two Los Angeles police officers after it was learned they responded to a report of a woman screaming at DelVesco’s apartment complex less than an hour before it went up in flames.
They looked around for six minutes and left without knocking on any apartment doors.
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