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Man Gets Life In Prison For UCLA Student's Slaying

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) – A 25-year-old Fresno man will spend the rest of his life in prison for stabbing a UCLA student to death and then setting fire to her Westwood apartment back in 2015.

Exactly three years to the day that 21-year-old Andrea DelVesco was murdered, Alberto Hinojosa Medina was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole in a Los Angeles County Superior courtroom. Prosecutors had opted earlier not to seek the death penalty against Medina.

Andrea DelVesco
FILE -- An undated photo of Andrea DelVesco, who was murdered in her Westwood, Calif., apartment on Sept. 21, 2015.

On Sept. 21, 2015, Medina – then a Fresno State University student – broke into DelVesco's apartment in the 10900 block of Roebling Avenue, stabbed her several times with a knife and then set her apartment on fire. He also broke into a second apartment across the street.

In May, a jury convicted Medina of first-degree murder, arson, burglary and cruelty to an animal; DelVesco's dog had to be euthanized after also being wounded by Medina.

Judge Mark E. Windham called Medina's crimes "truly monstrous."

"He must never walk free again," Windham said, citing what he called the defendant's lack of remorse for his actions.

DelVesco, a native of Austin, Texas, was entering her fourth year at UCLA, where she was studying psychology and Spanish.

The week of the murder, Medina had driven down to Westwood to visit a friend who attended UCLA. Following the murder, he subsequently drove his red 2010 Nissan Sentra back to Fresno, where he lived with two roommates.

Los Angeles police were notified when one of Medina's roommates tried to register a speaker that had been taken along with a laptop computer during the burglary at the second Westwood apartment. Police subsequently went to Fresno, where they recovered items containing DelVesco's DNA at the residence.

Medina did not speak during the sentencing hearing, while several of DelVesco's family and friends gave statements.

Last December, a second suspect, 25-year-old Eric Marquez, plead guilty to first-degree burglary and accessory after the fact in connection with the case. In June, Marquez was sentenced to two years and eight months in prison.

At the time of his arrest, Marquez was a fifth-year undergraduate at UCLA studying biology.

(© Copyright 2018 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. City News Service contributed to this report.)

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