A felon who abducted and fatally shot a man on a rural property south of Hemet, then tried to claim insanity, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and kidnapping under a pretrial agreement with prosecutors, court records showed Thursday.
Derrick Anthony Edgerson, 50, of Hemet admitted the charges, as well as sentence-enhancing gun and great bodily injury allegations, during a hearing at the Southwest Justice Center on Wednesday. In exchange for his admissions, the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office agreed to drop two related felony counts against Edgerson.
Superior Court Judge John Molloy scheduled a sentencing hearing for April 27 at the Murrieta courthouse. The proposed sentencing terms were not immediately available.
Edgerson is being held without bail at the Byrd Detention Center.
He killed the victim, identified in court documents only as “G.P.,” in March 2021.
Sheriff’s Sgt. Richard Carroll said at the time that G.P. was forcibly held at an isolated residence in the 40500 block of Newport Road, roughly a mile east of Diamond Valley Lake.
Sometime during the morning of March 18, 2021, the defendant shot the man to death, according to investigators.
A possible motive was not revealed.
Carroll said the victim’s remains were discovered the same day, and homicide detectives initiated an investigation that pointed to Edgerson as the perpetrator. He was taken into custody without incident within 24 hours of the killing.
Court records indicated the defendant originally entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity. He underwent a series of psychiatric examinations in 2023 and 2024 that did not validate his plea.
Court records show Edgerson has documented prior felony convictions for grand theft and domestic violence.