Victim found strangled in Delta-Mendota Canal. Modesto man sentenced for his murder.
A 38-year-old Modesto man has been sentenced to 59 years to life in prison for the death of a father who was found strangled in the Delta-Mendota Canal near Patterson two years ago.
Stanislaus Superior Court Judge Rick Distaso on Nov. 16 sentenced Timothy Charles Fee to 25 years to life in prison, the Stanislaus County District Attorney’s Office announced in a news release Wednesday afternoon.
The judge increased Fee’s sentence to 59 years to life because of enhancements to his criminal charge and a previous conviction considered a strike under the state’s “Three Strikes” law.
A jury on Sept. 18 found Fee guilty of first-degree murder in the death of David Michael Heath, 54, of Modesto. Deputy District Attorney Randy Fischer prosecuted the case.
Heath’s body was discovered in the canal near Sperry Avenue, just east Rogers Road on Aug. 11, 2016, according to Stanislaus County sheriff’s officials.
Prosecutors said a jogger spotted Heath’s body floating in the canal three days after Heath’s wife last saw her husband leaving his house. An autopsy determined that Heath had been strangled before his body was dumped in the water.
About 11 a..m. on Aug. 12, 2016, Fee and Jairo Dario Ramirez were spotted and questioned by Modesto police in a Wendy’s restaurant parking lot on McHenry Avenue in Modesto.
Prosecutors said Heath’s white Dodge Durango was found nearby, and the keys to the sport utility vehicle were found in Fee’s pocket. Fee also was found with Heath’s money clip and cell phone.
Sheriff’s detectives found security camera video showing Fee driving the Dodge Durango on Aug. 9, 2016, the day after Heath disappeared. Prosecutors said Fee was driving Heath’s vehicle, when Fee and Ramirez pawned a gold coin belonging to the victim.
Detectives questioned Fee, who implicated himself in Heath’s disappearance, according to prosecutors. Fee showed detectives where he and Ramirez dumped Heath’s body in the canal, prosecutors said.
At the time of the murder, Fee was on parole stemming from a Stanislaus County kidnapping conviction and smuggling drugs into a jail facility in Tuolumne County. Prosecutors said Fee also was out on bail at the time of the murder; he was awaiting sentencing for a conviction of being a felon in possession of a handgun in an unrelated case.
Ramirez, Fee’s co-defendant in the murder case, on June 28 was convicted of voluntary manslaughter and robbery for his role in Heath’s murder. Ramirez on Aug. 6 was sentenced to 14 years in prison.