Killer Gets Sentence of Death : Courts: Drug robbery and twin slaying in 1993 lead to capital punishment ruling, which the jury recommended. The triggerman insists that he acted to save his own life.

A Riverside County man was sentenced to death Tuesday despite making a last-minute plea that he was acting in self-defense when he fatally shot two men in 1993 during what police described as a drug robbery.

Family members wept in the court gallery as Ignacio Arriola Tafoya apologized to the victims’ relatives but insisted he killed only to save his own life--not as part of a robbery that was a factor in the death penalty sentencing.

“I am truly very sorry. Nobody deserves to die. There is nothing I can say or do that will bring those men back,” Tafoya said in brief remarks before Superior Court Judge Anthony J. Rackauckas Jr.

Tafoya, a 35-year-old landscape designer, and an accomplice were convicted in February of killing two men at a Westminster home on May 4, 1993. The murder charge carried a possible death penalty because the slayings took place during a robbery and burglary and had more than one victim.

“I never committed burglary. I never committed robbery,” Tafoya said, standing in his orange jail jumpsuit.

“I was forced to defend myself. You are going to sentence me to die for crimes I did not commit.”

But Rackauckas, who earlier turned down defense requests for a new trial and a lesser sentence, ordered Tafoya sent to state prison at San Quentin to await execution.

“If I believed what you just said, I could not pronounce judgment in this fashion. . . . I believe the jury was correct,” Rackauckas said.

As Tafoya was about to be led away clutching a paperback Bible, the judge added: “God help you, Mr. Tafoya.”

Tafoya will join 414 other California inmates--30 of them from Orange County--on California’s Death Row. His case, like all death-penalty cases, will be appealed automatically to the California Supreme Court.

Tafoya and Timothy T. Wynglarz, 34, were convicted of forcing their way inside the Westminster home of Gerald L. Skillman, 35, and opening fire on him and Steven F. Rita, 28.

Tafoya shot each man twice before he and Wynglarz left with stolen money, authorities said. Prosecutors said Skillman was targeted because he was a small-time drug dealer. A witness who was in the Skillman house escaped by jumping out an upstairs window and later testified in the trial.

Tafoya said the shooting occurred after he was swept into a scuffle between Wynglarz and the two victims.

Wynglarz, who has not been sentenced yet, faces up to life in prison without possibility of parole.

Skillman’s mother attended the death sentencing, but said afterward that the tragedy is still not over for her.

“It won’t be over. [Tafoya]’s going to appeal,” Colleen Skillman said.

Members of Tafoya’s family huddled around his distraught mother, Eva Cancino, and ushered her from the courthouse without comment. Cancino, who with her husband owns an Anaheim nursery, held her eyes closed and clutched a tissue to her face during the half-hour sentencing.

A previous outburst by family members when the trial jury recommended the death penalty in March prompted officials to add three extra courtroom marshals for Tuesday’s sentencing. There were no incidents.

Family members have said Tafoya, who attended high school in Huntington Beach and made it through the 11th grade, must have been under the influence of drugs in order to commit such a crime.