A man who fatally shot a 79-year-old man outside the victim’s Bay Ho workplace during what prosecutors say was a failed carjacking was sentenced Friday to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Francisco Xavier Villegas, 24, was convicted by a San Diego jury of first-degree murder, plus a special-circumstance allegation of murder in the commission of an attempted carjacking, for shooting Jose Quirin as the victim was sitting in his parked vehicle on May 3, 2022.
The jury’s special-circumstance allegation finding triggered the life-without-parole sentence.
San Diego Superior Court Judge Albert Harutunian said Friday that he didn’t believe Villegas intended to kill the victim, though the judge said Villegas fired the gun toward Quirin when the victim didn’t comply with his demands.
Following the gunfire, San Diego police said the shooter ran off, while Quirin drove about a mile away to a McDonald’s restaurant on Mission Bay Drive north of Garnet Avenue in Pacific Beach.
Employees of the eatery flagged officers down around 5:15 a.m., and Quirin was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Villegas, who was 21 years old at the time of the shooting, was on probation.
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