Crime & Safety
State Supreme Court Won't Hear Father Killer's Appeal
Johnatan Pedraza was arrested in Baldwin Park and was accused of using a dumbbell to kill his father. The body was found in a storage locker in Irwindale.
The California Supreme Court refused Wednesday to hear the case against a Hollywood man who used a dumbbell to fatally beat his 62-year-old father, whose body was found in a storage locker in Irwindale.
The state's highest court denied a defense petition, seeking review of the case against Jonathan Martin Pedraza.
Pedraza was arrested in Baldwin Park after colliding with two vehicles, getting out of his car and going up the steps toward the roof of a senior citizens' facility.
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In February, a three-justice panel from California's 2nd District Court of Appeal upheld Pedraza's conviction for first-degree murder in the Sept. 3, 2010 slaying of his father, Miguel. That panel rejected the defense's contention that there was insufficient evidence of premeditation and deliberation to support the first-degree murder conviction.
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"In the present case, there was evidence from which a reasonable jury could conclude that defendant had planned the murder," the 2nd District panel found in its Feb. 4 ruling. "The jury reasonably could infer that defendant knew that his dumbbell probably was in the storage unit, and asked (his father) Miguel to take him there so he could commit the murder in the unit and out of the view of witnesses."
Jurors found that he used the dumbbell to kill his father.
Jurors also convicted Pedraza—who was 24 at the time—of one felony count of vandalism and two misdemeanor counts of hit-and-run driving.
Pedraza crashed his vehicle through a gate at A-1 Storage, where his father's body was later discovered in a storage unit in which there were blood stains on the ground, the walls and some of the items inside, according to the appellate court panel's ruling.
An autopsy determined that Miguel Pedraza had suffered numerous skull fractures that were consistent with being struck in the head with a dumbbell or other heavy object, according to the ruling.