Man sentenced to life in prison for fatal 2011 shooting in East Palo Alto
EAST PALO ALTO - A 31-year-old man convicted of first-degree murder for a fatal shooting in East Palo Alto in 2011 has been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, the San Mateo County District Attorney's Office said Friday.
Christian Fuentes, one of the suspects in the killing of 19-year-old Catherine Fisher on July 13, 2011, was found guilty by a jury in September and was sentenced Thursday to the life term, prosecutors said.
Fisher was sitting in a parked vehicle with two other people on Annapolis Street when two suspects approached and opened fire. She was struck multiple times in the shooting, which investigators had said targeted one of the other people in the vehicle.
Authorities identified Fuentes, Jaime Cardenas and Fidel Silva as the two shooters and driver in the case and learned that the trio had fled after the shooting and went to Grand Junction, Colorado, where Fuentes committed another fatal shooting on July 16, 2011.
Fuentes then returned to the Bay Area and was arrested three days later, East Palo Alto police said. Cardenas and Silva remain at large.
Fuentes was convicted for the Colorado killing and was sentenced to 84 years in prison, then was extradited to San Mateo County to face charges in the killing of Fisher as well as the premeditated attempted murder of the other people in the vehicle, prosecutors said.