A sheriff’s cruiser at the scene of the Marina Del Rey shooting. Courtesy of OnScene.TV
A San Diego County killer was sentenced Wednesday to life in prison without the possibility of parole for gunning down a 17-year-old girl during a drug deal gone bad at a Marina del Rey-area shopping center parking lot.
Cameron Anthony Frazier, 23, of Vista, was convicted in June of first- degree murder for the Jan. 6, 2016, killing of Kristine Carman at the Villa Marina Marketplace.
Jurors also found true the special circumstance allegation of murder during the commission of an attempted robbery, along with an allegation that Frazier used a gun. Prosecutors opted not to seek the death penalty for Frazier.
Frazier was also found guilty of two counts of attempted robbery involving the victim’s sister and the sister’s boyfriend, along with one count of assault with a firearm.
The boyfriend of Carmen’s sister had arranged to meet someone in the parking lot to sell medical marijuana, Deputy District Attorney Eugene Hanrahan said. But the boyfriend grew suspicious about Frazier because he didn’t match the photo from the driver’s license that had been supplied. The two struggled after Frazier demanded two pounds of marijuana buds inside the vehicle, where Carman and her sister were waiting, Hanrahan said.
Frazier fired one shot into the car and another at the would-be marijuana seller as that man ran toward a restaurant, the prosecutor said.
Carman — who was visiting from Texas — was struck just below her left eye, Hanrahan said. Her body was found in the vehicle outside a Panda Express restaurant in the shopping center.
Lacey Carman of Marina del Rey said she was the one driving the vehicle her sister was in, and that “my sister was just murdered in front of me in a robbery gone wrong.” Her sibling, she wrote in a Facebook post, was “beautiful smart and undeserving” of the fate that befell her.
“I pray that God is real and holding my sisters hand right now. I pray that you never have to feel this pain or this self loathing,” she wrote.
Frazier was arrested 12 days after the killing.
–City News Service
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