A Bakersfield man is facing up to 16 years to life in prison for fatally stabbing a man at a Monterey Park pizza parlor, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office announced Friday.
Jose De Jesus Ruiz, 26, was convicted Thursday of second-degree murder for the Oct. 6, 2012, killing of Patrick Raymond Ortega, 25, of Monterey Park, who was stabbed 15 times at a Shakey’s restaurant at 1955 S. Atlantic Blvd.
“To stab an unarmed person so many times and in such a vicious manner is unfathomable. No one should have been killed that day,” Deputy District Attorney Theodore Swanson said after the verdict.
Ruiz, who testified that he killed Ortega in self-defense, is due back in a Burbank courtroom on Sept. 1 for sentencing.
–City News Service