Girlfriend Gets Prison for Helping Killer of 2

A Granada Hills woman who helped her boyfriend clean up the blood after he shot his parents to death was sentenced in Van Nuys Superior Court Wednesday to 16 months in prison.

Judge Melvin B. Grover could have ordered Christine A. Penamante, 32, to serve four years in state prison, but chose the lighter term because Penamante called police voluntarily several hours after the crime.

Penamante pleaded guilty last month to two counts of being an accessory to murder for helping Timothy D. Hudkins wipe up the blood and hide the bodies after he murdered his parents, Richard and Doris Hudkins.

Hudkins, 39, pleaded guilty in March to two counts of first-degree murder and was sentenced June 5 to 52 years to life in prison.

Investigators believe Hudkins killed his parents in an attempt to inherit some of their almost $600,000 in property. Hudkins since has been ordered disinherited by Grover because state law prohibits a person from gaining through a murder.

The parents’ bodies were found in their Sepulveda home on July 19, 1983, after Penamante, whose gun was used in the slayings, called police to report the incident.

According to a probation report, a lie-detector test showed that Penamante helped plan the murders and was present when the shootings took place. Penamante, however, said she was not in the house at the time of the murders, the report said.

Penamante “seemed quite cold and mechanical about the whole situation,” a probation officer concluded, adding that she had nagged Hudkins to get money from his parents and had several times threatened the couple herself.