Spring Valley

An accomplice in the murder of sheriff’s cadet Kelly Bazer was sentenced Friday to nearly 34 years in state prison.

“I’m sorry somebody got hurt in the robbery. I wish it didn’t happen,” Ronnie Davis Williams said in court.

“I bet you do. Kelly Bazer doesn’t get to wish it didn’t happen,” responded San Diego Superior Court Judge J. Perry Langford.

Williams, 21, received 26 years to life for the Jan. 13, 1986, slaying of Bazer, 28, an El Cajon mother of two who was shot in the back after a robbery of a Safeway store in Spring Valley.

Williams got a consecutive 7-year term for the robbery of Safeway store manager Gerald Hardesty and a consecutive 8 months for auto theft. His total term is 33 years and 8 months to life in prison.

The defendant is the second man to go to prison for the slaying, which was the first homicide of a San Diego County sheriff’s deputy in more than 100 years.

Jesse Lee Stuart, 20, received 35 years to life Sept. 11 and was believed to have been the gunman who killed Bazer. Both Williams and Stuart were convicted of first-degree murder in separate trials.

“Mr. Williams is the kind of person who goes along with whatever comes along. What comes along isn’t very nice in his case,” said the judge.

Even though Stuart was thought to be the gunman, Williams was convicted under the felony murder rule, which states that all participants in a felony in which a murder is committed are legally responsible for the murder.

A Jan. 29 trial date is set for the alleged getaway driver, Prentice Byrd, 20. The three defendants are all from Southeast San Diego.