A 19-year-old man who fatally shot a 68-year-old homeless woman in Serra Mesa last year with a pellet gun pleaded guilty Wednesday to involuntary manslaughter.
William Innes is slated to be sentenced next month to five years and eight months in state prison for the killing of Annette Pershal, who police found unconscious on the morning of May 8, 2023, on Sandrock Road.
Prosecutors allege that prior to the shooting, Innes sent a message to a group chat that read, “I’m going hobo hunting with a pellet gun.”
Innes and co-defendant Ryan Hopkins then drove to Pershal’s encampment and Innes fired multiple pellets out of the car at the victim, according to prosecutors.
Pershal died in a hospital three days after the shooting. She was shot in the head, leg and torso, with one pellet rupturing her aorta, according to Deputy District Attorney Roza Egiazarian.
Hopkins and Innes were arrested in August.
Innes, who was initially charged with murder, pleaded guilty Wednesday to the manslaughter count, as well as a felony count of possessing an assault weapon and an allegation of using a dangerous weapon in the slaying.
Hopkins pleaded guilty last year to assault with a deadly weapon and was sentenced to one year in county jail, plus probation. Hopkins’ sentence includes a suspended three-year prison term, which could be imposed if he violates his terms of probation.
Pershal, affectionately referred to as “Granny Annie” or the “Queen of Serra Mesa” by friends and family, grew up in the community where she was killed, according to her daughter, Brandy Nazworth.
Nazworth said at Hopkins’ sentencing hearing last year that she had tried to get her mother to move in with her in Louisiana, but Pershal “couldn’t imagine leaving the neighborhood she grew up in.”
She called her mother “a hippie and a free spirit” and described her as a “human library of San Diego history and stories,” who was generous with others despite her circumstances.
“She was a person, not just a thing to be used for target practice,” Nazworth said.
— City News Service