La Jolla

A transient pleaded guilty Wednesday to trying to kill a worshiper at a La Jolla church last year.

Patricia Perrellis, 42, admitted shooting Michelle Gallagher, 40, on March 2 as she was leaving Mary Star of the Sea Roman Catholic Church.

A second attempted-murder charge was dismissed. It involved another incident that day, in which Colette Cholaki, 24, told police that Perrellis pointed a gun at her in a parking lot. Cholaki said the weapon misfired and she quickly drove away.

Perrellis’ sentencing was set for Feb. 21 by San Diego Superior Court Judge Jesus Rodriguez.

“It’s a mandatory prison case,” Deputy Dist. Atty. George Beall said. “She’s looking at an exposure of 14 years.”

Perrellis was deemed mentally incompetent to stand trial three weeks after the incidents and spent most of 1989 in a state mental hospital.

However, officials at Patton State Hospital in San Bernardino County deemed she had recovered, and she was remanded to San Diego for trial last November.

The motive for the attacks remains unknown.

“She’s very unstable, but it didn’t amount to a viable defense,” Beall said.

Perrellis’ attorney, Richard Lepore of Redlands, could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

Gallagher told police she was in the church foyer when the woman approached her and asked where the confessional was.

Upon leaving, Gallagher said, she was shot in the back with the woman’s Derringer.

Beall said Wednesday that Gallagher has returned to work as a real estate agent but still has pain and cannot walk long distances. Part of the bullet remains in her back because it is too close to the spine to remove, he said.

Perrellis remains in County Jail at Las Colinas without bail.