Student Charged With Murder in School Shootings

A 19-year-old nursing student first thought to be a kidnap victim has been charged with first-degree murder in a fatal shooting at the West Covina vocational school she attended, prosecutors said Friday.

Also Friday, West Covina police said the woman’s boyfriend and suspected triggerman, Martin Meza, 24, will not be extradited from Mexico because authorities there have determined that he is a Mexican citizen.

He will instead be tried for the murder in Mexicali, where he and the woman, Lisa Villela, went after the Aug. 16 attack that killed a teacher and wounded two others at the North-West College of Medical & Dental Assistants, police said.

Police said Villela is now believed to have been the driver of the getaway car for Meza, who allegedly went to the school intent on killing Robin Stanford, a counselor who advised Villela to get help for beatings she had reportedly received from Meza. In a flurry of bullets allegedly fired by Meza, Stanford and a student were injured and Carolyn Vasquez, 36, a popular teacher, was killed.

Authorities in Baja California have assured West Covina police that Meza, a reputed Duarte gang member, will be dealt with harshly, West Covina Police Lt. Clint Collins said.

“It’s their opinion that what he did will be looked upon by the court system there as a heinous crime,” Collins said. “He’s not going to walk away from this.”

Villela pleaded not guilty last week to charges that she was an accessory to the shooting. Prosecutors at Citrus Municipal Court in West Covina said Friday that they now believe Villela went with Meza to the school, waited outside while he allegedly opened fire, then drove the getaway car.

Villela is scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday on charges of first-degree murder and two counts of attempted murder.

“I really can’t go into the nature or content of what we’ve learned, but basically it’s believed that she is just as culpable as Mr. Meza,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Kathleen Cady said. “It’s believed that she knew what he was going to do and that she knew what he did.”

Villela’s parents, who said Meza beat and threatened Villela two days before the shooting, described their daughter as a victim.

“You can still see the bruises and the spots where he yanked her hair out,” said her mother, Georgia Villela. “He terrorized her.”

Her former attorney, Debra A. Smith, who dropped the case because the family could not afford to pay her to defend Villela on the more serious charge, said she is still convinced that the young woman is innocent.

“Whatever they say may have happened, I can assure you Lisa Villela did not have any free choice in what she was doing,” Smith said. “She should be a witness for the state, not a defendant.”

Villela, who earlier was being held in lieu of $100,000 bail, had her bail revoked by Municipal Judge Fred A. Felix. If convicted of first-degree murder, she could face 25 years to life in prison.

West Covina investigators believe the intended target of the attack was Robin Stanford, a 27-year-old counselor at the school who was critically wounded. Stanford had advised Villela how to get help for the beatings she reportedly received from Meza.

Mexican authorities said Meza claimed that he shot Stanford because Villela had told him that the counselor had sexually assaulted her. Collins said Villela later denied that an assault took place and authorities said they are convinced that the connection between Stanford and Villela was nothing more than student and teacher.

But Collins acknowledged that “she could have told him (Meza) almost anything.”

Before Meza allegedly opened fire, he asked who owned a pickup truck that was parked outside the school, witnesses said. The truck belonged to Stanford.

Stanford, who was wounded in the abdomen, was listed in good condition Friday. And Ronald Lee, a 17-year-old student from Rosemead, was hit in the leg.

In the days after the shooting, West Covina police speculated that Meza may have kidnaped Villela, who is the mother of two young children and is pregnant.

But on Aug. 19, authorities in Mexicali spotted the couple walking on the street together--”like newlyweds,” they said.