After strangling appliance repairwoman, homeowner gets 55 years in prison

A Lancaster man has been sentenced to 55 years to life in state prison for killing a woman sent to his home to repair a refrigerator, the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office announced.

Williams Franklin Hughes III, 32, was found guilty May 29 of first-degree murder, and on Thursday, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Carlos Chung ruled that Hughes was sane during the commission of the crime.

Hughes strangled Lyndi Lee Fisher, a 36-year-old appliance technician, after she came to his house July 14, 2017, to work on his fridge. Fisher had repaired another appliance at Hughes’ home the previous month, prosecutors said.

Deputies discovered Fisher’s body inside the home in the 43200 block of Doverwood Court after Hughes called the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department around 11 p.m. to report that a woman was unresponsive in his home.

Hughes was arrested the next day.

He initially told police that he had stepped out of his home while Fisher worked on the appliance and saw that she was unconscious and lying on the floor when he returned, authorities said.

Fisher, a wife and mother of three, was pronounced dead at the scene.

The job was her last service call of the day, according to her then-employer, Arrow Appliance.

“We are all in shock and will miss her bright ray of sunshine every day,” the business said in a Facebook post at the time.