Pomona : Killer of Activist Sentenced
William Barnes, a convicted murderer from North Carolina, has been sentenced to 20 years to life in prison after being found guilty in Pomona Superior Court of the 1986 murder of a Chicano activist in El Monte.
Barnes, 35, was ordered Sept. 10 by Judge Victor Person to begin serving the California sentence only after his North Carolina prison term has expired. Further, Person ordered Barnes to pay a $10,000 fine and recommended that the state parole board never release the North Carolina man.
On Aug. 13, a jury convicted Barnes of the Jan. 2, 1986, slaying of Carlos Vazquez, 25, who was gunned down in the driveway of his El Monte home. Barnes had been a former suitor to Vazquez’s wife, Dolores, and made harassing telephone calls.
For five years, Los Angeles County sheriff’s detectives lacked sufficient evidence to prosecute Barnes. But after Barnes killed a North Carolina man in a similar love triangle there, Barnes confessed the Vazquez murder to a relative.
Under the sentencing laws in North Carolina and California, Barnes will probably serve 18 years of his life sentence there before being sent to California to serve from 20 years to life here, Deputy Dist. Atty. Mike Davis said.
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