Merced man gets life in prison for killing wife in front of children

A 61-year-old Merced man who shot his wife to death last year during a crowded family barbecue was sentenced Monday to serve 50 years to life in prison.

Crisanto Bedolla would be 111 years old before he becoming eligible for his first parole hearing. The life prison term was the maximum possible sentence in the case, authorities confirmed.

Bedolla shot and killed Lucia Medrano Zarco, his wife of more than 40 years, at a family party on Aug. 15, 2015, on Franklin Road. The couple had eight children, many of whom were at the party and saw their father kill their mother. They also had numerous grandchildren.

“This family has been devastated,” said Merced County Chief Deputy District Attorney Rob Carroll. “The children lost their mother and their father in a single moment, and our hearts go out to them.”

Carroll and Deputy District Attorney Matthew Creeger prosecuted the case against Bedolla.

The marriage of Bedolla and Medrano Zarco, 63, fell apart around 2012 when Medrano Zarco began dating a man more than 40 years her junior, authorities have said.

A Superior Court jury convicted Bedolla of premeditated murder on June 10 after a weeklong trial before Judge Ronald W. Hansen. Jurors handed down their conviction after deliberating for nearly two full days.

Deputy Public Defender Chris Loethen, Bedolla’s attorney, did not dispute that Bedolla killed his wife. Rather, Loethen argued that his client did not plan to kill her but acted impulsively in the heat of passion after enduring three years of humiliation. Loethen said repeatedly that Bedolla was not trying to justify the death and did not believe she deserved to die.

He said a conviction of voluntary manslaughter was more appropriate.

The picture of a crushed, aging and jealous man violently lashing out in the heat of the moment was disputed sharply by prosecutors.

Creeger and Carroll said Bedolla plotted his wife’s death for months, threatened her in the weeks leading up to the attack and noted that he brought a gun to the family gathering and drew her away from other family members before firing five shots into her chest.

Loethen said Bedolla plans to appeal the conviction. He said the judge declined to add supplemental information to the jury instructions that further explained the legal concept of voluntary manslaughter.

“That will likely be one of the issues he raises on appeal,” Loethen said.

Carroll praised the work of the detectives with the county Sheriff’s Office who investigated the case.

Undersheriff Jason Goins said the conviction was the result of “outstanding work by our investigators, as usual.”

“They went above and beyond with this case,” Goins said Monday, “and the work shows with the sentence in the case today.”

This story was originally published July 11, 2016 at 4:52 PM with the headline "Merced man gets life in prison for killing wife in front of children."