A man who pleaded no contest to murdering his 64-year-old female roommate — whose body was found in a trash bin near the El Monte mobile home park where they lived — was sentenced Thursday to 15 years to life in state prison.
As a result of the plea deal to a second-degree murder charge, David Stanley Lemus Orellana, now 28, also agreed to waive credit for three years of the just over six years he has spent behind bars since the crime.
Florinda Velazquez-Hernandez’s body was discovered Feb. 4, 2020, in the 3300 block of Maxson Road by El Monte police officers who had been sent there on a “suspicious circumstances” call from a person who reported that a man was seen dragging a female body toward the trash container, authorities said.
In court papers, Deputy District Attorney Brendan Gibson wrote that the defendant attacked his roommate “without provocation” as she stood in the kitchen area of their mobile home, struck her at least once in the area of her head and knocked her to the floor, where he strangled her and then placed her into a blue storage bin before discarding her in a trash bin.
The motive for the attack is unknown.
Lemus Orellana was arrested that afternoon by El Monte police. The victim’s daughter and grandson each said in court that they have forgiven the defendant.
Sara Velazquez told Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Robert Serna that “these years without her have been so difficult.”
She said through a Spanish interpreter that there are things that she will never be able to understand, saying that her mother was “always helping people” and questioning why the then 22-year-old man would attack her mother.
“I want to let him know that my life was never the same,” the victim’s daughter said.
The woman noted that she spent 16 years without her mother and only had three years with her after she moved from El Salvador to the United States, but said “we don’t feel hatred in our hearts.”
The woman’s grandson, Fernando Velazquez, said through a Spanish interpreter that she was “a mother for me.”
“… I do forgive the killer of my grandmother,” he said. “I don’t know what he thinks, but he can get to know God and God can forgive him.”