A woman who fatally shot a man at the victim’s Alpine-area home was sentenced Monday to 20 years in state prison.
Angela Marie Meza, 49, pleaded guilty to a voluntary manslaughter charge last month for the May 16, 2017, killing of 42-year-old Lorenzo Rodriguez, whose death was initially reported as a possible suicide.
Meza had been set to stand trial on a murder charge carrying a potential 65-year-to-life sentence when she entered her plea to the lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter.
Prosecutors have not disclosed a motive for the killing, but Deputy District Attorney Kristi Gill said Meza had only met Rodriguez earlier that day.
Sheriff’s deputies were dispatched to investigate the fatality in a back-country area just west of Viejas Casino shortly after 6:30 p.m. and found Rodriguez dead from a gunshot wound to his upper body.
Meza was one of several people at the victim’s home on Viejas Grade Road when authorities arrived.
—City News Service
