Decades after a woman’s body was found by city workers in the brush alongside Laguna Canyon road, her son-in-law on Thursday, Oct. 22 accepted a plea deal admitting to the killing and was immediately sentenced to probation, drawing anger from family members who wanted him to spend time in prison.
John Edward Gutierrez, now 59, pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter rather than the murder charge he faced since 2014 for the 1998 killing of 55-year-old Lillian DeVilla.
Gutierrez — out on bail while awaiting trial — was ordered to spend two years on supervised release. Orange County Superior Court Judge Patrick H. Donahue warned Gutierrez that if he were to violate the terms of his probation, he could face up to an 11-year prison sentence.
Several of the victims’ family members felt angry and betrayed on hearing that Gutierrez would receive probation. Her son, Lester DeVilla, told the judge that he felt like “justice has slipped through our fingers,” adding that Gutierrez had escaped any “meaningful consequences.”
“For 28 years my family and I have lived through an emotional nightmare,” the son said. “We have searched for answers to the questions that haunted us every single day — who killed our mother and why?”
“Now, after all these years, he finally admits his guilt, and what is the consequence? Probation,” he added. “After finally admitting his guilt he can practically walk away scot-free. Where is the justice in that?”
Family members described DeVilla as respectful, gracious and endearing, saying she was “a great human being who loved with her whole heart.” Her death ripped the family apart, they told the judge.
“She was more than a victim, more than a name in a police report, more than a case that took 28 years to resolve,” her son said. “She was loved. And she deserved so much better than what happened with her.”
Another group of family members who apparently supported Gutierrez sat in a different part of the courtroom gallery, and at times the tension between the groups was obvious. But none among that group spoke during the hearing.
Beyond his guilty plea and confirming to the judge that he understood his plea deal, Gutierrez did not speak during the hearing. He appeared to be looking down as the family members spoke out against him.
The prosecution did not explain during the hearing why they agreed to drop the murder charge and agree to a voluntary manslaughter plea deal with no prison time. And since it didn’t reach a jury trial, the facts of the case were never fully outlined in open court.
But court records outline a complicated case with a prosecution theory that the defense contended wasn’t backed by actual evidence.
In January 1998, DeVilla — a widow who worked as a production manager at a clothing company in Carlsbad — lived in an Aliso Viejo apartment. Gutierrez, at the time a Chief Petty Officer in the Navy stationed at the former Marine Corps Air Station, El Toro, also lived in the same apartment, along with his wife, DeVila’s daughter.
According to the prosecution’s theory, DeVilla had promised to give her daughter and Gutierrez money for a down payment on a new house. However, due to her “serious gambling problem and financial debt,” DeVilla didn’t have the money available when it came time to pay for a house, the prosecution wrote.
Both the prosecution and defense filings agreed that DeVilla, in order to come up with the money, concocted a plan to falsely claim her car had been stolen. DeVilla allegedly parked at the Westminster Mall, and an acquaintance who was in on the plan took the car and drove it to Tijuana, Mexico. DeVilla then reported the car stolen to police and her insurance company, the attorneys wrote.
According to court filings, the scheme fell apart when the car was found in Mexico. A claims adjuster with her insurance company called the apartment where DeVilla and Gutierrez lived and left a message on the answering machine that the car had been recovered.
In the prosecution’s theory of the case, that phone call set off the chain of events that led to DeVilla’s death.
The prosecution alleged that Gutierrez was part of the insurance fraud scheme and that he feared if his role was discovered he would be court-martialed from the military and face criminal prosecution.
Prosecutors contend that a verbal confrontation between Gutierrez and DeVilla escalated to the son-in-law hitting her in the back of the head three times with a blunt object, knocking her unconscious. They allege that he then tied a plastic bag over her head with a jacket drawstring using a knot routinely taught in the military. She slowly suffocated over 30 minutes, according to the prosecution’s filing.
Prosecutors allege that Gutierrez then placed his mother-in-law’s body in his 1990 Mitsubishi Eclipse Hatchback and drove to a secluded spot off Laguna Canyon Road, leaving her on the ground underneath trees and thick bushes. Five days later, the body was discovered by workers repairing a fence in the area.
But the defense criticized the prosecution’s motive and theory as “pure speculation.”
No DNA, fingerprint, or other forensic evidence tied Gutierrez to the killing, the defense noted.
No murder weapon was ever found, the defense added in filings, and no eyewitnesses to any wrongdoing by Gutierrez ever came forward or were contacted by investigators.
And Gutierrez cooperated with the investigation, speaking to detectives and voluntarily taking a polygraph test, the defense attorney wrote.