"I only hope at some point that Nathan Medina will admit to me and my family the gruesome, cold-hearted act he has committed. ... Words cannot express the pain and suffering Nathan's actions have brought to ouf family and friends."So said Dusty Rhoads, the father of 25-year-old Joshua Rhoads, at Friday's sentencing of Nathan Medina. As Contra Costa Times reporter Malaika Fraley wrote, Medina was sentenced to life in prison for shooting and killing Joshua Rhoads in March 2008 when he broke into the Rhoads family home as part of a plan to take revenge on Joshua Rhoads' mother, Beverly Rhoads, for a lawsuit the Rhoads family had filed against Medina's stepfather.
Fraley, who covered the trial, reported that testimony showed that Medina planned to kill Beverly Rhoads. But Joshua and his mother barricaded themselves in a laundry room, with Joshua putting himself between his mother and the door, while Medina was on the other side, shooting through it. After breaking the door in two, Medina, according to Beverly Rhoads' testimony, reached into the laundry room and fatally shot her son at point blank range.
The source of Medina's anger was a dispute over an addition to the Rhoads' home built by Medina's stepfather and contractor, Tony Latteri.
While Joshua Rhoads' friends and family described the pain and loss that Medina had caused them, Medina's defense attorney Dirk Manoukian has told the Times that Medina's family "firmly believes in his innocence and plans to appeal the conviction."
2 comments:
If he's guilty, which sounds like he is circumstantially, then: What a low-life. Hope he rots in jail.
Glad to see the sentence was finally rendered, hopefully giving the Rhodes family some sort of closure to this phase of their grieving (if even possible). I sat as a juror for this trial, Nathan was ABSOUTLY 100% guilty. I sleep soundly at night knowing he is behind bars for the rest of his life.
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