A drunk driver who killed his two passengers in East County after he tried to drive home from a party in Alpine was sentenced Sept. 8 to 30 years to life in state prison.
The earliest opportunity for parole for Mario Alberto Carranza, 28, will be in 2044. A jury found him guilty of two counts of second-degree murder on June 30.
A drunk driver who killed his two passengers in East County after he tried to drive home from a party in Alpine was sentenced Sept. 8 to 30 years to life in state prison.
The earliest opportunity for parole for Mario Alberto Carranza, 28, will be in 2044. A jury found him guilty of two counts of second-degree murder on June 30.
Family members of both victims, Carlos Kristopher Vargas, 20, and Monica Lupercio, 20, spoke tearfully of their deaths that occurred April 19, 2014 after Carranza lost control of his vehicle and crashed into a concrete culvert off Interstate 8.
“This pain I feel is very strong and I would not want it on anyone,” said Lupercio’s mother, Maribel Lupercio. “This pain I feel will never go away. I would like to wake up from this nightmare,” said Lupercio.
“We’re all safer with this man out of society,” said Ken Kessler, whose wife is a cousin of Vargas.
“We hope we can save others from you,” said Lisa Kessler, a cousin of Vargas, to Carranza.
El Cajon Superior Court Judge Ronald Frazier ordered two terms of 15 years to life to run consecutive and not concurrently as urged by Carranza’s attorney, George Sidell.
Siddell said his client has “diminished mental capacity” and was a slow learner in school. Bright said Carranza has a previous drunk driving conviction from 2007 and attended classes by Mothers Against Drunk Drivers as part of his sentence.
Frazier ordered Carranza to pay $2,025 to the crime victim’s compensation fund and fined him $10,714.
Carranza stood up and faced the courtroom audience, saying “I wish it were me instead of them. I’m not a murderer. I wish I could take it all back. I don’t know what happened.”
Bright said Carranza’s blood/alcohol level was three times the legal limit and he had also used cocaine. Carranza passed out in a bathtub at the Alpine residence and woke up at 7 a.m. the next morning, still under the influence.
He loaded his passengers to take them home at 7:30 a.m., but hit a center divider, over corrected, and drove through a chain-link fence. The car overturned in a concrete culvert and he was the only survivor.
Man ordered to stand trial for murder of Flinn Springs’ man
Rory Patrick Fay, 32, of Crest, was ordered Sept. 7 to stand trial for the murder of Bren Fisher, 64, who was found beaten to death in his Flinn Springs home on Jan. 7.
Fay was in possession of dueling pistol replicas and other items that belonged to Fisher, according to sheriff’s detectives who testified in the preliminary hearing conducted by El Cajon Superior Court Judge Lantz Lewis.
Fisher was a friend of Fay’s family and he had known him for decades. Fisher had been in the hospital for 2 months and had been discharged about a week before his death, said his friend, Mark Morency.
Some days before the murder, Fay was kicked out of his home in Flinn Springs due to his use of heroin, said Sheriff’s Detective Brian Patterson. Fay initially denied any involvement in Fisher’s murder after his Jan. 9 arrest, but later said he went to Fisher’s home to see if he could live there, said Patterson.
Fay eventually admitted to beating Fisher with a bowling pin and to cutting the water line in his home to “cover up evidence and DNA,” said Patterson.
Detective William Anderson said when he entered Fisher’s home at 9974 Bridon Road, he saw Fisher’s body on the floor. There was water on the floor due to the water line being severed in the kitchen and bathroom.
Anderson said the cause of death was blunt force trauma including multiple fractures of the skull. Some of Fisher’s belongings were found in Fay’s suitcase which was searched after he was arrested in a mobile home on La Cresta Heights Road, said Anderson.
Fay and his attorney agreed for him to stand trial on a charge of possession of marijuana while in jail without requiring any testimony about that. A trial date will be set on Sept. 26 and he remains in jail on $1 million bail. He has pleaded not guilty.
