Arnulfo Gonzalez was found guilty Thursday of a 2010 murder that somehow escaped the webbing of our Brooks Robinson model homicide-catching glove.
Thus, 35-year-old victim Samuel Valdivia becomes No. 64 in our 2010 Orange County count.
He was found
stabbed to death around 3:30 a.m. March 14, 2010, in his apartment in the 800 block of North Olive
Street, Orange.
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Valdivia and Gonzalez, 30, had been out drinking at a bar when they
returned to Valdivia's apartment. The tenant criticized the visitor's
reckless driving of a mutual friend's car, an argument broke out and
Gonzalez stabbed Valdivia. The knife was found in the apartment
complex courtyard.
A former Las Vegas resident who was living
out of his truck, Gonzalez was arrested hours after the stabbing when detectives spotted him near the Orange Police station. It must be nice when your work just falls in your lap that way.
Speaking of
hours, it only took the deliberating jury 2 1/2 to
convict Gonzalez Wednesday night of second-degree murder with a sentencing enhancement for
use of a deadly weapon. The verdict was read the next morning.
He's
scheduled back in court Oct. 7 for a sentencing hearing where he
faces up to 16 years to life in state prison.
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.