Jury in 2003 Slaying Gets Case

Family members of a slain 21-year-old Placentia woman wept Thursday as an Orange County prosecutor told jurors in closing arguments that breaking up with her boyfriend didn’t justify coldblooded murder.

“It doesn’t matter if she was the meanest witch on the planet,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Dennis Conway said. “It doesn’t justify his taking her life.”

Jurors began deliberating the fate of Richard Joseph Namey, who testified that he killed Sarah Jennifer Rodriguez on April 16, 2003, and shot her new boyfriend, Matthew Reid Corbett of Westminster, as they drove home from a McDonald’s before heading to their weekly Bible study.

Namey’s lawyer argued that the shooting was a crime of passion and that his client should be found guilty of manslaughter, not first-degree murder.

“How could it be planned in broad daylight with witnesses there?” said Senior Deputy Public Defender John Zitny. “What kind of premeditation is that?”

Namey, 27, has pleaded not guilty to charges that he murdered Rodriguez and tried to murder Corbett, then kidnapped a motorist in Santa Ana three days later and stole his car.

In his closing argument, Zitny said that Namey spent the hours before the slaying in his Tustin apartment writing suicide notes to his family.

“Mom, I know you’re going to be sad and mad,” Namey wrote. “But please don’t be sad, maybe I will finally be at peace.”

Although Zitny described a sudden, passionate crime, Conway said Namey acted in a deliberate, thoughtful manner, loading his .357 magnum the day of the killing and “cornering, trapping and positioning” his car next to Rodriguez’s two blocks from her home.

“He doesn’t threaten or brandish the weapon,” Conway said. “He hides it until the last minute. He shoots Corbett three or four times, and we do know he saved at least one bullet for Sarah. Does that sound like someone who doesn’t know how to execute a plan?”

Three weeks before the shooting, Rodriguez had obtained a temporary restraining order against Namey and was planning to get a permanent one.

She wrote in her journal on March 27, 2003, hours after Namey allegedly tried to strangle her: “He’s gonna kill me.” The next day, after she handed him the restraining order, she wrote: “He told me I didn’t want to do that, that I was just making it worse for myself.”

After the breakup of their yearlong relationship, Zitny said, Namey spent many “painful, sleepless nights” and contemplated suicide.

“Then when he found out she had a boyfriend, he just snapped,” Zitny told jurors. “I’m not asking for sympathy. But I am asking for a little human understanding.”