A man who gunned down a market owner in South Los Angeles more than 27 years ago while the victim’s 9-year-old daughter was inside the business was sentenced Friday to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Curtis B. Rappe denied the defense’s motion for a new trial for Marcus Perkins, 47, who was convicted last July 13 of first-degree murder for the July 24, 1990, shooting death of Timoteo Pena, the owner of Sinaloa Meat and Grocery Market in the 5600 block of San Pedro Street.
Jurors also found true the special circumstance allegation of murder during the commission of a robbery or attempted robbery.
The 42-year-old victim was working in the market with his daughter when he was shot and killed, police said.
“I am the little girl he left in that store with her dad,” an emotional Esmeralda Pena told the judge just before the sentence was imposed.
Another one of her sisters said that Perkins had taken “an innocent life” and that she wants him to pay by spending the rest of his life in a cell.
The victim — who fired at his assailant twice — was shot five times, his wallet and gun were taken and the counter was ransacked, according to Deputy District Attorney Marna Miller, who handled the case with colleague Melissa Opper.
The victim’s daughter had skipped to the back of the store to close the door, heard a gunshot, saw Perkins with a gun pointed at her father and heard more gunshots, the prosecutor said.
Perkins went to an Inglewood hospital a few hours later for treatment of a gunshot wound to his abdomen area, and DNA testing done years later determined that blood found on the defendant’s shoes was linked to the victim, the deputy district attorney said.
The prosecutor told jurors that the evidence points to Perkins “time and time again.”
Acting as his own attorney, Perkins urged jurors to acquit him of the killing.
He told jurors that he was the “only person law enforcement has pursued” and that there was “reasonable doubt in this case to establish my innocence.”
“It is my position that it doesn’t add up,” Perkins said of the prosecution’s case.
Perkins was initially questioned after being admitted to Daniel Freeman Hospital with a gunshot wound later that night, but he denied being responsible for the crime, police said.
Perkins, who was subsequently convicted of two other robberies, went to the same hospital after being shot by the owner of a mini-mart during one of the robberies.
Shortly after being released from prison on one of the robbery cases, he was arrested in August 2013 in connection with the killing.
Police said then that physical evidence examined for the presence of DNA forensically linked him to the crime scene.
He has remained behind bars without bail since then.