The California Supreme Court refused Wednesday to hear the case of an ex-con who was found guilty of gunning down his estranged wife inside a Kohl’s store in Whittier as their 8-year-old son waited just outside, three days before Christmas.
Enrique Acosta, now 45, is serving a state prison sentence of just over 100 years to life for the Dec. 22, 2020, killing of Yvonne Annette Acosta.
Acosta was convicted in July 2022 of first-degree murder for shooting his estranged wife inside the store at the Whittwood Town Center in a crime caught on surveillance video as their son stood outside the store’s doors.
He was also found guilty of child abuse, violation of a court order, possession of a firearm by a felon and hit-and-run driving resulting in property damage.
In a June 11 ruling, a three-justice panel from California’s 2nd District Court of Appeal rejected the defense’s contention that jurors in Acosta’s trial were not properly instructed on premeditation and provocation and that a judge erred in denying his motion for acquittal on a felony child abuse charge involving the couple’s son.
At Acosta’s sentencing in November 2022, Superior Court Judge Debra Cole-Hall called the killing a “vicious and a cold act” and said she had seen “no remorse” in the defendant’s statement to police after he was taken into custody in the following day in the Barstow area.
The judge — who noted that she had been given a history of Acosta that indicated he had a “violent upbringing” — refused the defense’s request to strike either of the Whittier man’s prior convictions from 2000 for voluntary manslaughter and 2013 for criminal threats, which resulted in his sentence being tripled to 102 years and four months to life in state prison.
Yvonne Acosta — who Deputy District Attorney Safaan Ahmed said had met her estranged husband at the store in connection with a credit card transaction — was found on the floor inside the store and died at the scene.
In his closing argument, the prosecutor told the jury the defendant had four prior convictions for domestic violence involving his estranged wife, including a case in which he pleaded no contest to spousal battery about a month before shooting the 46-year-old woman five times. Criminal protective orders had been issued in all of those cases, according to the prosecutor.
The prosecutor said the evidence proved that the killing was first-degree murder, arguing that it was “not under a heat of passion” and that Acosta chose to bring a gun into a store while his estranged wife and young son were with him because he planned to do something with it that day.
“He was upset with Yvonne and he was going to use it (the gun) that day,” Ahmed told the jury. “The defendant felt disrespected by Yvonne and felt that she did not care about him.”
The prosecutor said the defendant “caused his 8-year-old son to see his mother get shot five times by his father.”
Acosta had told the boy — who was not called as a witness during the trial — that his mom “deserves” it, according to the prosecutor.
Following his arrest, Acosta admitted to Whittier police that he had shot his estranged wife, with whom he shared the 8-year-old boy and an adult daughter, the prosecutor said. The two had been separated for about a year, the deputy district attorney said.
Acosta’s trial attorney, Daniel Im, had argued that “justice for Enrique in this case is a manslaughter.”
“In this case, Yvonne was shot by Enrique. We’re not disputing that,” the defense lawyer told the jury during his closing argument. “The evidence shows that manslaughter is the proper charge,” Im said. “He did not commit murder.”
The defense attorney said it could be argued that his client was a “bad husband” and acknowledged that Acosta had gone to county jail and prison — the latter of which he said his client had admitted while on the stand in his own defense.
“Yvonne provoked Enrique with her claims of unfaithfulness. … Things were said that provoked an emotional response out of Enrique,” he said, noting that his client has expressed regret about the shooting.
In his rebuttal argument, the prosecutor countered that nothing corroborated any allegation of provocation or the defendant’s claim that the victim told him just before the shooting that she was having an affair, and urged the jury to hold Acosta “accountable” and to “give this family some peace.”
Her estranged husband collided with the victim’s parked car as he fled in his Honda Civic following the shooting.
Acosta has remained behind bars since his arrest.
At Acosta’s sentencing, the victim’s mother, Lydia Rodriguez, called the defendant a “monster” and said she misses her daughter every day.
“She loved you and she would hide a lot of things from us,” she said.
One of the victim’s sisters, Christina Sierra, said, “My sister did not deserve to have her life taken from her. … You took the life of the one and only person who loved you unconditionally.”
Another one of her sisters, Susie Ortiz, said, “It didn’t need to end this way. … You’ve hurt us and if that’s what you wanted, you prevailed.”
The victim’s niece, Elizabeth Ortiz, who is raising the couple’s son, told the defendant, “No one is to blame but you … You are finally out of the picture.” She said she wanted him to know that he should never contact the family again.
The victim’s best friend, Elaine Ortega, called the defendant “a coward” and said she hadn’t realized how much he had “terrorized” his estranged wife.