A 19-year-old man charged with driving the alleged killer of a homeless woman to the Serra Mesa location where she was fatally shot with a pellet gun was sentenced Friday to one year in county jail and probation.
Ryan Hopkins pleaded guilty in San Diego Superior Court to assault with a deadly weapon in connection with the May 7 shooting of 68-year-old Annette Pershal.
Officers found her unconscious on the morning of May 8 at her encampment on Sandrock Road. Pershal was shot in her head, leg and torso, with one pellet rupturing her aorta, according to Deputy District Attorney Roza Egiazarian. She died in a hospital three days later.
Prosecutors say Hopkins drove 18-year-old co-defendant William Innes to the scene after Innes allegedly announced over a group chat “I’m going hobo hunting with a pellet gun.” Pershal was shot shortly after the message was sent, according to prosecutors. Hopkins and Innes were arrested in August.
Innes is charged with murder and various firearm-related counts and remains in custody without bail.
Hopkins’ sentence includes a suspended three-year prison term, which could be imposed if he violates his terms of probation.
Hopkins’ defense attorney, Vikas Bajaj, argued at his client’s sentencing hearing that Hopkins never saw Innes’ alleged “hobo hunting” message and “had no idea” of any plan to harm anyone.
Bajaj alleged that while they were in the car, Innes told Hopkins, “Hey, watch this,” then began firing the pellet gun before Hopkins could intervene or react.
Annette “Annie” Pershal
(Brandy Nazworth)
But Egiazarian said Hopkins would have had ample time to stop the shooting, because the pellet gun requires individual reloading of each pellet.
The prosecutor said Innes fired six to eight pellets at Pershal.
Egiazarian also said Hopkins and his friends knew who Pershal was — referring to her in text messages as “the frog lady” — and that it was known in the community that she regularly stayed at the location where the shooting occurred.
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 the hearing 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.
