A 47-year-old man was sentenced Friday to 14 years in prison for fatally shooting a man and woman in a mobile home that was torched to cover up the crime in Santa Ana.
Jason Blanchard pleaded guilty May 26 to two counts of voluntary manslaughter with sentencing enhancements for the discharge of a gun in a plea deal with prosecutors, who dismissed murder charges with special circumstance allegations of multiple murders. Prosecutors also resolved multiple other pending cases against Blanchard, which included drug-related cases in jail.
After six days of deliberations, jurors deadlocked 7 to 5 for guilt on one count of murder and 8 to 4 for guilt on a second count of murder on March 23. But jurors convicted him of arson and possession of a gun by a felon.
Blanchard was given credit Friday for 1,673 days behind bars.
Blanchard could have faced life in prison without the possibility of parole if he had been convicted of special-circumstances murder at trial.
Blanchard admitted killing 30-year-old Steven Christian Lucero and 33-year-old Jillian Alise Jones on June 10, 2022 in Santa Ana.
Jones’ daughter, Giselle Delgado, told Orange County Superior Court Judge Richard King how she was 16 when she was told of her mother’s death.
“My heart stopped, my head went blank, my body went numb,” she said in a quiet voice as she struggled with her emotions.
“My whole world stopped. My whole life will never be the same,” Delgado said.
She described how she struggled in school after the news and fell behind in her academics. But she realized one day her mother “would want me to move forward” so she rallied “to get my grades up and got to the finish line.”
But it was bittersweet as her mother could not be there for her graduation, she said.
“Nothing feels special without her,” she said.
For future milestones, “All I will do is think how she should be there … I will always have a void in my heart that can never be filled … I think about her every single day.”
One of the main witnesses for the prosecution, John Acosta, was given use immunity to testify, meaning what he said in testimony can’t be used against him by prosecutors. Senior Deputy District Attorney Casey Cunningham told reporters after Blanchard’s plea that prosecutors did not file charges against Acosta due to insufficient evidence.
Cunningham acknowledged to King last week that the plea bargain for Blanchard was driven by the same shortfall in evidence.
Blanchard’s attorney, Sara Ross of the Orange County Public Defender’s Office, argued Acosta was the actual killer and ordered Blanchard to help destroy the evidence to cover up the crime.
“He set the fire because he’s afraid of Acosta,” Ross argued.
Acosta, Ross argued, is a gang member. She pointed to text messages in which Acosta orders Blanchard around.
Ross also attacked the testimony of two other witnesses, pointing to their lengthy criminal records and for one of the women a long battle with mental health issues such as schizo-affective and bipolar disorders.
Acosta and Blanchard went to a “flop house” at 5002 W. McFadden Ave., between Euclid and Newhope streets, on the afternoon of the killings, Ross said.
Acosta testified that Lucero, who had just a towel around his waist, put his hands up and was backed up into a bedroom where Jones was. Blanchard slammed a gun on Lucero’s head, triggering the weapon and striking Jones, Acosta claimed.
A woman in the home said she overheard voices before the shooting and recognized Blanchard’s when she saw him later and spoke with him, according to Cunningham. She said she overheard another male voice saying, “Did you just kill her?” before hearing two more gunshots, according to Cunningham.
Blanchard changed his clothes and returned to the mobile home at about 10 p.m. and is seen with a gas can on surveillance video, Cunningham said.
Another witness who has a criminal history of drug dealing told investigators she saw Blanchard later at a motel in Orange and when she asked him about a gauze bandage on his neck he told her it was a burn wound, Cunningham said. Then Blanchard admitted to killing two people earlier in the day before sparking the blaze, Cunningham said.
But Ross said that woman who saw him in the motel “hallucinates” due to her mental health issues.
“She sees aliens, monsters, people who were never there,” Ross said. “She hears voices. … She’s been in and out of mental hospitals since she was 16 or 17.”
In June 2022 “she was off her meds” for two years, Ross argued. The woman was instead “self-medicating,” Ross said, adding, “That’s not a credible witness.”
The woman had also suffered a brain injury in May 2022 and, “Her brain is literally leaking,” Ross argued. “She’s got brain damage from a car accident.”
Ross argued that a defense expert testified on the ballistics, making the case that the trajectory of the bullet that killed Jones was a “straight line” through the head, contradicting Acosta’s claim that the gun went off after a blow to the head. The expert also testified there was no sign of that kind of a blow to the head of Lucero, Ross argued.
“Acosta lied,” Ross said. “Acosta lied to all of you. He has to because there’s no other evidence that Jason Blanchard is the killer.”
Ross faulted Santa Ana police for failing to do more investigation of social media activity and cell phone history.
“Or they should have found witnesses who can tell you the truth,” Ross said. “John Acosta will do anything to gnaw his way out of a jail cell,” Ross said. “He would do anything to save himself.”
Cunningham countered that Acosta had a methamphetamine habit to explain why his statements to police vary.
“John Acosta back in that time was a daily methamphetamine user. Does that affect memory? Sure,” Cunningham said.
Cunningham said when Blanchard struck Lucero with the gun, “No one was expecting that gun to go off.”
Otherwise, why would Lucero ask, “Did you just kill her?” Cunningham argued.
If Acosta wanted to frame Blanchard he would just claim the defendant shot the two in cold blood, Cunningham argued.
“Why not go big if you want to frame someone?” Cunningham argued.
Cunningham pointed to a still from surveillance video that he argued indicated Blanchard had a gun in his back pocket as he left the shooting.
“You may not like these witnesses because they have prior convictions,” Cunningham said. “But this is the real world and these are the witnesses we have.”
As for the witness with the mental health disorders, Cunningham said, “Ask yourselves, did she happen to imagine seeing the defendant? Did she happen to imagine the defendant saying he got burned in a fire? What a series of coincidences.”
The prosecutor said the defendant drove away from the shooting and returned to ignite the fire and he later “confessed” to the shootings to the witness in the motel.
“They all corroborate each other in different ways,” Cunningham said of the witnesses in the trial. “What would be their motivation” to frame the defendant, Cunningham asked about the two women.
The fire shows consciousness of guilt, Cunningham argued.
“He wanted to do whatever he could to hide the evidence,” Cunningham said.
The trouble began when a homeless man’s pickup truck was stolen June 8, 2022, Ross said. All of the man’s belongings were in the truck so he wanted to get the vehicle back, Ross said.
When the man found out Lucero, a friendly acquaintance, had stolen the truck he went to track him down, Ross said. He allegedly found out the truck was sold to a man known as Boo Boo.
Blanchard and Acosta, who were also acquaintances of the man, went to Boo Boo’s home in Westminster to discuss the truck, Ross said. They then went to Acosta’s home in Fountain Valley and were hanging out and smoking methamphetamine before Acosta and Blanchard drove to the mobile home park.
Acosta testified he didn’t want to go with Blanchard to the mobile home. He said he wanted to pick up his children from school instead. Acosta lived down the street from the mobile home park, he testified. He said Blanchard went into the home first and he followed.
Jones “was nervous, I was trying to calm her down,” when Blanchard slammed the gun on Lucero’s head, Acosta testified.