Man Gets Life Sentence for Stepfather’s Murder

A 40-year-old man was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole on Friday for fatally shooting his stepfather in the head in 1995 during a fight over money.

Frank Pina entered the courtroom smiling, but he had no reaction when Orange County Superior Court Judge Cecil Hicks announced his sentence. He was convicted in August of first-degree murder in the death of 66-year-old Edward Thomas Tobin of Fullerton.

Pina, whose first trial ended with a deadlocked jury, was convicted of the special circumstance of murder committed during a robbery, which made him eligible for the life sentence.

The victim’s 45-year-old daughter, Arlene Tobin, told the judge she wanted Pina to be forced to take his birth certificate to jail “to know what a disgrace he was to his beloved mother.”

Deputy Public Defender Tim Severin was disappointed with the sentence but said he realized that the judge had no choice given the charges for which Pina was convicted.

Severin said Pina’s actions were “situational” and added: “He needs to be punished, but he’s not a threat to society. How many stepfathers can he kill?”

But Deputy Dist. Atty. Carolyn Kirkwood, who prosecuted the case, said she believes the sentence was appropriate.

“It’s never a happy day when someone is sentenced to spend the rest of their life in prison,” Kirkwood said. “But sometimes people commit crimes and forfeit the right to live in society. This is one of those crimes.”

During the trial, Kirkwood said Pina, who was living with his stepfather in Fullerton, killed Tobin for cash and jewelry.

The defense claimed Pina was verbally abused by his stepfather, who bombarded him with ethnic insults. Severin said Pina was “caught in the moment” when he aimed Tobin’s own rifle at him and fired.

Severin had argued that Pina was guilty of involuntary manslaughter and was provoked through verbal abuse and his belief that Tobin had mistreated Pina’s mother as she was dying of cancer.

Arlene Tobin acknowledged Friday that her father did not cope well with his wife’s illness and said she does “apologize a little bit” to the Pina family for that. But she said Irma Pina made her own decisions about her medical care.

The prosecution maintained that Pina wanted to inherit some of Tobin’s property and was constantly asking the older man about his will. Tobin became suspicious of his stepson and bought him a one-way ticket to Phoenix. But the day Pina was scheduled to leave, he shot Tobin once in the head.

Several members of Pina’s family said Friday that the sentence was too harsh.

“He’s not a violent person,” said his stepmother, Val Pina. “I believe that this is something that happened in a fit of rage, a loss of control.”