A 23-year-old Santa Ana man is facing criminal charges for allegedly shooting his mother in the back while they were parked in front of the Fullerton Police Station and then leaving her body inside a car at a church parking lot, where it was discovered a week later.
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Emmanuel Wesley has been charged with murder, along with an enhancement for the use of a firearm, according to an Orange County District Attorney’s Office statement released on Friday.
Wesley pleaded not guilty on Thursday, court records show.
The mother, 61-year-old Theresa Jones, was reported missing on July 7 after she didn’t pick her grandchild up and didn’t respond to repeated calls.
Four days later, on July 11, Jones’ body was found in the passenger seat of her vehicle in a church parking lot in Fullerton. Prosecutors say there were two gunshot wounds to her back.
Video surveillance footage captured Jones driving her vehicle up to the Fullerton Police Department around 2:45 p.m. on the Fourth of July, according to prosecutors.
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The footage showed Jones slumping over and a man prosecutors say they have identified as Wesley getting out of a rear seat behind his mother, according to the DA statement. Wesley then pushed his mother into the front passenger seat, prosecutors allege, before getting into the driver’s seat and driving away.
“The death of any human being is a tragedy,” Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer said in a written statement. “For someone to kill their own mother is another level of depravity.”
Authorities have not specified a suspected motive for the apparent killing. They also did not specify the exact location of the church or how close it was to the police station. And it was unclear how the vehicle with the body inside of it was apparently in the parking lot for seven days without anyone noticing.
If convicted as charged, Wesley faces up to 50 years to life in prison. He is currently being held without bail in county jail.
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