Modesto business owner was convicted of killing homeless man. Judge gave him 40 years.
The Modesto tattoo shop owner convicted of fatally shooting a homeless man behind his business in 2019 was sentenced on Tuesday to 40 years to life in prison.
Jeremy Don Fennell, 38, was convicted in December of the second-degree murder of 25-year-old Lawrence Walker and a gun enhancement.
“I cry every day because I miss my baby and I’m so terrified for the rest of my kids that another heartless human being is going to take them from me, too,” Walker’s mom, Naomi Mills, said through tears during victim impact statements before the sentencing.
To the judge she said, “I just beg you to never let this man to walk the earth again because he is a danger to anyone who he feels is not on his level.”
Walker — lovingly referred to as Buddha by his family — and his wife, Jessica Estrada, were sitting on the curb behind the Sin Cal Industries tattoo and body piercing business at 3117 McHenry Ave. on March 15, 2019, when Fennell showed up to work.
He parked in the stall where Walker was seated, got out of his vehicle with his firearm wrapped in a sweatshirt and approached the homeless couple, according to testimony during the trail.
Estrada testified that Fennell immediately became aggressive and said, “You need to get your homeless s--- and get the f--- out of here,” and that Walker responded, “Just because you’ve got a gun doesn’t give you the right to be a d---.”
Fennell testified during the trial that he simply informed them he was opening for business soon and asked them to collect their belongings and leave. He said that’s when Walker told him he wasn’t afraid of his gun, that both Walker and Estrada began yelling profanities at him and that Walker “popped up” from the ground. Fennell said he repeatedly told Walker to stop coming toward him and fired once when Walker stepped off the curb.
His attorney Kirk McAllister said that the shooting was self-defense, that Walker was hostile and that Fennell believed Walker would take his gun from him if he allowed him to advance.
Chief Deputy District Attorney Jeff Laugero said Fennell brought a gun to an argument. He said Fennell’s unreasonable justification for shooting Walker in the heart was based on a danger created in his own mind of stereotypes about homeless people with drug addictions, not anything that happened that day.
Fennell’s views of homeless
In statements he made to police and in a post on social media before the shooting, Fennell called homeless people “druggie bush people” and said they carry diseases and are less than human.
“If we can not kill them all like we can other pests then we must not feed the wild drug addicts,” he wrote in the social media post.
Estrada’s mother, Cheri Hannah, stood up and faced Fennell as she read her impassioned victim impact statement.
“(My daughter) is afflicted with a disease that neither of us asked for,” she said. “Mr. Fennell talked about homeless addicts being hopeless, helpless people; people with a life not worth living. Every life is worth living. The struggles she’s endured will be her story and will give others the strength to walk a similar road and survive.”
“You deserve everything you get both in the sentencing today and in prison,” Hannah went on. “You deserve the bars that will cage you like the animal you are and you deserve to miss out on all the things that Buddha will miss out on with his son.”
Walker had a son with Estrada and a daughter from a previous relationship.
Mills said Walker’s daughter, 7, talks about wishing she were dead instead of her father. “Jeremy Fennell did this to my grandchild,” she said.
Walker’s sister Jazzmine Jones said Fennell, also a father, still gets to see his family. “I can’t see my brother ... I can’t talk to my brother. No matter how many years this man is in jail, he still can make memories with his family, he still can hear all the accomplishments from his family.”
Defense arguments denied
Before the victim impact statements, Judge Linda McFadden heard a motion by McAllister for Fennell to get a new trial. He argued that Fennell was sleep deprived during the first trial because of the living conditions in the jail. He also argued that the conviction on the gun enhancement should be thrown out because Fennell had no prior criminal record, legally owned the gun and had a permit to carry it.
McAllister said the gun enhancement, which has a longer sentence than the murder conviction, was meant for the most egregious of crimes by career criminals with illegal guns.
McFadden denied both motions, saying that Fennell made no mention of sleep deprivation to the court during the trial and that with the permit to carry a firearm comes great responsibility.
“The decisions that you made that day put you in the place that you’re in right now,” McFadden said. “I know you haven’t had any prior criminal convictions; however, that one act showed this court how dangerous you really are.”
She sentenced him to 15 years to life for second-degree murder and 25 years to life for the gun enhancement, for a total of 40 years to life in prison.
This story was originally published May 19, 2021 at 12:56 PM.
