Oxnard Teen Sentenced in Murder Case : Crime: Francisco Gonzalez gets 29 years to life for robbery attempt in which his best friend was shot dead by shop owner.

An Oxnard teen-ager whose robbery accomplice was killed during an attempted holdup at a convenience store was sentenced Wednesday to prison for 29 years to life.

Francisco Gonzalez, 16, who was tried as an adult, showed no emotion when Superior Court Judge Charles R. McGrath rejected a defense plea to sentence him to a juvenile facility, where he would have been released at age 25.

Under the sentence handed down by McGrath, Gonzalez will not be eligible for parole for more than 18 years. He will serve the first nine years of the sentence at a California Youth Authority facility, then will be transferred to a state prison.

Gonzalez pleaded guilty in February to the murder of Mark Alan Estrada, 16, of Oxnard, who died of a gunshot wound to the chest Dec. 2 when the pair attempted to rob the Stop ‘N Save convenience store on South Ventura Road in Oxnard.

Although Estrada was killed by shop owner T. Roman Paras, 58, Gonzalez was legally responsible for the death because it occurred during a felony in which he participated.

Paras killed Estrada after Gonzalez shot at him. Besides pleading guilty to murder, Gonzalez also admitted attempting to murder Paras.

In exchange for the guilty pleas, prosecutors dropped a special allegation that the murder occurred during a robbery attempt. If convicted of the allegation, Gonzalez would have been sentenced to prison for life without possibility of parole.

Attorneys said Estrada and Gonzalez were best friends who had committed a burglary together earlier. Although the teen-agers were ordered by their parents to stay away from each other, the pair continued to associate, attorneys said.

“This case is absolutely a tragic case all around,” Deputy Public Defender John H. Voigtsberger said during the sentencing hearing. “This was a dumb, juvenile, poorly thought-out stunt. It shouldn’t be elevated into something by criminal masterminds.”

Voigtsberger, in asking McGrath to sentence Gonzalez to the youth authority, said the teen-ager is not a hardened criminal and can be helped by rehabilitation programs offered at juvenile facilities.

But Deputy Dist. Atty. Peter D. Kossoris said it was no surprise that Gonzalez participated in the robbery attempt, in light of his previous criminal record for burglary, vandalism and possession of a weapon.

“This crime is by no stretch of the imagination an aberration,” Kossoris said, adding that Gonzalez is sorry his friend died “but he doesn’t assume any responsibility or blame.”

McGrath said he believed a prison sentence was appropriate in the case based on the seriousness of the crime and Gonzalez’s prior criminal record. He sentenced the teen-ager to 25 years to life for first-degree murder, plus four years for using a gun in the commission of the crime.