A 34-year-old man who gunned down his estranged wife as she slept in her La Quinta mobile home because he was convinced she was having affairs with other men was sentenced Friday to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
An Indio jury in March convicted Jose Valles Meza of La Quinta of first-degree murder, a special circumstance allegation of lying in wait and sentence-enhancing gun and great bodily injury allegations for the slaying of Patricia Cesena in 2019.
During a hearing at the Larson Justice Center Friday, Riverside County Superior Court Judge James Hawkins imposed the sentence required under state law for the crimes.
The defendant killed Cesena in the Dune Palms Mobile Estates at 46400 Dune Palms Road in the predawn hours of Jan. 27, 2019, obsessed with the idea she was seeing other men.
While his and his estranged wife’s four kids slept, Meza fired into the home through a bedroom window, fatally wounding the woman, according to sheriff’s investigators.
The defendant fled the location, driving south into Imperial County, where he was pulled over by a California Highway Patrol officer on suspicion of speeding and drunken driving.
While being booked into jail, Meza blurted out that he had “witnessed a murder,” according to CHP Officer Michael Bernardino.
After inquiring further, the officer was able to ascertain where the shooting had occurred, and deputies were sent to the mobile home in La Quinta to conduct a welfare check shortly before 6 a.m., roughly three hours after the attack.
Sheriff’s Investigator Martin Alfaro testified Cesena was discovered dead from a single gunshot to the head. Her kids were still sleeping when deputies entered the residence.
One of the kids, identified only as an 8-year-old girl, told detectives that her parents often fought and that cameras had been placed throughout the home so her father could spy on her mother, believing he might catch her in an act of infidelity.
Meza had no documented prior felony convictions in Riverside County.