Prosecutors convict East Palo Alto man in 2011 murder case
EAST PALO ALTO (CBS SF/BCN) – Prosecutors succeeded in convicting a 31-year-old man of first-degree murder for a fatal shooting in East Palo Alto in 2011, the San Mateo County District Attorney's office said Wednesday.
Christian Fuentes was accused of the killing of 19-year-old Catherine Fisher, who was sitting in a parked vehicle with two other people on Annapolis Street on July 13, 2011, when two suspects approached and opened fire, according to the District Attorney's Office.
Fisher was struck multiple times in the shooting, which prosecutors said had 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 after the shooting had gone 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 then was extradited to San Mateo County, where a jury on Tuesday convicted him of first-degree murder with the special circumstances of lying in wait and use of a firearm, as well as attempted premeditated murder, prosecutors said.
Fuentes is set for sentencing on Jan. 12, 2023, and had already been sentenced to about 84 years in prison for the Colorado killing, according to the District Attorney's Office.