A man who shot and killed a brother and sister during an argument at a Southcrest-area home last year pleaded guilty Wednesday to premeditated murder charges that will put keep him behind bars for life.
Felipe DeJesus Vega Meza, 40, will be sentenced April 6 to life in prison without the possibility of parole, plus 25 years to life, for the Nov. 8 “execution-style” deaths of 20-year-old Arline Iribe and 22-year-old Alex Velarde.
At the defendant’s arraignment last year, Deputy District Attorney Amy Maund said Vega shot the victims after a sequence of events days before the murders.
On Nov. 8, Iribe decided she’d had enough of Vega’s refusal to let an unspecified issue go, but he pulled out a gun and shot her before turning the weapon on her brother, Maund said. The prosecutor said the victims knew Vega and had treated him like a family member for years.
Maund, who did not disclose a specific motive for the killings, said that Vega “destroyed the family within minutes.”
Vega was the subject of a manhunt until the night of Nov. 12, when officers spotted him in his car about a block away from the South 43rd Street house where the slayings occurred.
Refusing to yield, Vega led a 20-minute road chase during which he tossed a handgun out of his vehicle, Maund said.
Vega ultimately pulled over near Joyner Elementary School but ignored repeated orders to exit and surrender. He remained holed up in his green Oldsmobile Cutlass late into the night as officers and negotiators attempted to coax him out of the car and used pepper spray and a police dog to try to force him to comply.
When he finally exited the sedan, Vega appeared to reach for something in his waistband as he turned toward police, prompting Officer Christopher Luth, an 11-year member of the SDPD, to shoot him once in the upper body, according to police.
Vega was treated at a hospital for a non-life-threatening wound.
— City News Service
