Rape, Strangulation of Waitress : Murderer Gets No-Parole Life Sentence

The man convicted of raping and strangling a Fullerton woman was sentenced to life in prison without parole Friday after the victim’s mother testified that the murder “has shattered our hopes for happiness.”

Andrew L. McCarter, who has maintained his innocence in the 1986 slaying of Julie Fenton, a graduate of Cal State Fullerton and part-time waitress, declined to make a statement before sentencing.

But Fenton’s mother, Virginia Rita Medbery, made a tearful plea for punishment. Urging Orange County Superior Court Judge Robert R. Fitzgerald to hand down a sentence of life without parole, Medbery said McCarter’s violent past proves “he is incapable of living in our society.”

The murder “has left a void in our lives . . . forever,” she told the judge.

McCarter, 32, was convicted of murdering Fenton, 24, in April, but jurors rejected the death penalty in a 7-to-5 vote. He had been tried on the same charges earlier, but a hung jury was declared in the first trial because jurors could not reach a verdict.

Fenton, who worked at Elmer’s Restaurant in Fullerton, was found dead in her apartment on June 21, 1986. McCarter and others had been seen sitting with Fenton in the restaurant only hours before she was killed, according to testimony in the trial. In addition, prosecutors presented physical evidence to show that McCarter was in Fenton’s apartment on the night of her death.

Key testimony came from McCarter’s brother, Michael, who said McCarter had asked him to check on Fenton the day after the killing, and from three of McCarter’s former wives, who testified that he had beaten and raped them. Michael McCarter did not attend the sentencing Friday.

Before ordering McCarter to prison for the rest of his life, Fitzgerald denied defense motions to either grant a new trial or modify the automatic life-without-parole sentence.

In an interview in jail earlier in the week, McCarter said, “I’m not the monster the prosecutor has made me out to be.”