Man Pleads Guilty in Slaying of Grandmother Over Truck Keys

A 20-year-old Sun Valley man pleaded guilty Tuesday to voluntary manslaughter in a fatal knife attack on his 65-year-old grandmother after an argument over the keys to the family truck.

Michael Francis Newberry will be sentenced Sept. 6 for the Feb. 29 killing of Elvera Ferraris, who was stabbed repeatedly with a butcher knife at the Lehigh Avenue home she shared with Newberry, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Candace Foy-Smith.

Foy-Smith said that Newberry came home under the influence of cocaine and that Ferraris would not give him the keys to the truck. She slapped him, and he pushed her, the deputy district attorney said. After she threw some coffee at him, he “knocked her down, stomped on her with his feet, hit her in the head and chest and then stabbed her in the head, chest and throat” with a butcher knife, Foy-Smith said.

The charges initially brought against Newberry were for murder, but Foy-Smith said a plea bargain was offered because the crime occurred in the heat of passion, which is a standard for voluntary manslaughter.

Also a factor in the plea, Foy-Smith said, was Newberry’s condition. He was under the influence of cocaine, which could make it more difficult to prove that he intended to kill Ferraris.

Neighbors reported to police that Ferraris was missing for three days after the slaying. Newberry surrendered to San Diego police, Foy-Smith said.

He could receive a maximum sentence of 12 years in prison.