A man is scheduled to be arraigned this morning on charges he fatally shot a friend he'd believed had burglarized his Brea home.
James Gregory Price, 56, faces a murder count and sentencing enhancements that could send him to state prison for 50 years to life in the slaying of 24-year-old Justin Soto.
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Justin Soto Identified by Readers as 25-Year-Old Shot to Death in Brea
(Note: Brea Police had said Soto was 25, but an Orange County District Attorney's office arraignment statement gives the victim's age as 24.)
Price and his adult son were living in the Brea home of
the older man's recently deceased mother. On March 15, the found the mother's bedroom, which had been closed to the home's occupants and guests, had been ransacked and the residence had been burglarized.
Prince and his son believed Soto was responsible, according to prosecutors, who claim the son invited Soto over on March 16. Price and Soto got into an argument at the home before the older man took out a gun and shot the younger man in the leg, according to the DA's office.
Soto fell to the ground, got himself back up and tried to run away, but Price murdered him by firing two shots into Soto's back, the DA alleges.
Price, who is being held on $1 million bail, faces felony murder with a sentencing enhancement
for the personal discharge of a firearm causing death.
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OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.