Countywide : Jury Convicts Man in Cashier’s Death

Stephanie McHugh’s friends knew her as a someone who was always willing to go to those in need. It was on such an occasion that the 20-year-old Garden Grove woman was shot to death on a rural highway.

On Tuesday, 15 months after she was killed, her assailant was convicted of first-degree murder. Jurors in Santa Maria Superior Court decided that Lompoc airplane mechanic Mitchell Herdman, 34, fatally shot McHugh. He faces sentencing Nov. 14.

Herdman’s attorney, Bob H. Betzendorfer, said he will appeal the conviction.

“Stephanie was one of those people you never wanted to lose,” said Darlene Smith, who worked with her as a checker at Ralph’s supermarket in Garden Grove. “She was kind, caring, honest and giving of herself.”

Miss McHugh, who loved to ride horseback and spent hours volunteering her time to handicapped children and the elderly, was on her way to Santa Ynez to help a friend to whom she had sold her car. When the new owner called on July 7, 1988, to say that the car had broken down, Miss McHugh set out to assist her friend after leaving work at about 7 p.m.

But near Buellton, she got lost. McHugh called her friend for directions, but she was still disoriented, and she pulled to the side of Highway 154, presumably to consult a map, said Jeanni Buzzelli, a counselor who aided the victim’s mother during the trial. A man in a two-tone pickup truck pulled up beside her just before midnight, leveled a rifle at her, pulled the trigger and sped away.

A man who had stopped on a nearby street saw the truck, heard the shot and called police. Based on his account, Herdman was arrested the following day. Bits of Miss McHugh’s tissue were found on the side of Herdman’s truck.