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The last of four defendants convicted in a violent South Bay crime spree that left a man dead and a woman paralyzed in separate shootings was sentenced this week to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Over the course of a few days in April 2018, prosecutors say that along with both shootings, a third victim was abducted and assaulted, and a fourth was stabbed.
The fatal shooting victim, 59-year-old Mario Serhan, was mistakenly believed to be an undercover police officer surveilling the defendants. He was shot in the head while driving in a Chula Vista intersection.
Less than a day later, the defendants took a 19-year-old woman they believed had been “snitching” to police to Sunset Cliffs, where prosecutors say Michael Pedraza, 34, shot her and left her for dead. Tourists found her hours later. She had been shot in the ear, the neck and the leg and remains partially paralyzed.
Pedraza was convicted in two separate San Diego Superior Court jury trials of attempted murder and kidnapping charges. He was sentenced Wednesday to life without parole, plus an additional 65 years to life, for the woman’s shooting and other crimes.
Pedraza’s co-defendants, Cesar Alvarado, 45; Britney Canal, 35; and Francisco Aranda, 35, pleaded guilty to varying charges and have all been sentenced to prison.
Authorities said the crime spree began with Alvarado and Canal robbing the woman who was later shot at Sunset Cliffs. They took her purse a...
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