Source: http://www.sandiego6.com/news/local/sto ... 553fd17e5d
Last Update: 10/20 1:23 pm
A woman pleaded guilty Monday to second-degree murder for stabbing and beating an 82-year-old man just days after she had been released on parole for attacking her mother and stepfather.
Rhonda VanPelt, 39, faces up to 35 years to life in prison when she is sentenced Nov. 20.
VanPelt, who also goes by the name of Rhonda Elaine Hill, stabbed Ralph Edward Gardener with an ice pick and beat him with a metal sea horse statue last Oct. 27 after they argued about her unauthorized use of his credit card, said Deputy District Attorney Kurt Mechals.
A judge ruled in May that there was enough evidence to order VanPelt to stand trial for murdering the victim, whom she had been dating.
According to police reports, witnesses identified VanPelt as the woman seen running from an apartment where Gardener's body was found in the 1300 block of Pepper Drive.
In exchange for her guilty plea, Judge Peter Deddeh dismissed a "strike" stemming from a 1995 burglary conviction, in which VanPelt broke into her mother's home to attack her mother and stepfather.
That "strike" would have tripled the defendant's prison exposure, Mechals said.
VanPelt was convicted at trial for the attack in 1996, but the verdict was overturned because two of three mental health experts weren't allowed to testify.
The defendant pleaded guilty several years later, expecting to receive probation but instead got life in prison.
After a hearing in 2002, a judge set aside VanPelt's guilty plea.
In July 2003, VanPelt pleaded guilty to attempted murder and residential burglary was sentenced to 10 years behind bars. She was given credit for more than seven years in custody and had just been released on parole when she attacked Gardener last fall, Mechals said.
VanPelt was arrested a day after Gardener's murder at a family member's home in Ketchum, Idaho.
The defendant will have to serve 35 years in prison before she's eligible for parole, Mechals said.