Clerk’s Killer Gets Life Without Parole
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A 23-year-old Lancaster man received a life sentence without the possibility of parole Friday for the May 5 slaying of a Moorpark grocery clerk.
Ventura County Superior Court Judge Vincent J. O’Neill Jr. handed down the maximum sentence to John Charles Alvez, calling the killing of 21-year-old Marco Aurelio Rodriguez “extremely heinous.”
“The punishment fits the crime,” O’Neill said before adding 10 years to the life sentence because Alvez used a gun in the commission of murder and robbery.
Alvez went to the butcher shop where Rodriguez worked on May 5 on the pretext of installing spice racks. He waited for an opportunity, and shot Rodriguez twice in the back of the head before taking about $2,000 from the store’s cash register, prosecutors said.
Alvez’s trial was short--just four days--with the jury only deliberating 80 minutes before reaching its verdict Oct. 25.
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