Man sentenced for murdering coworker and entombing body in cement
A man who shot and killed a former coworker out of resentment over being laid off was sentenced to 50 years to life in prison Monday.
Juan Alberto Galvez, 49, shot the coworker with a shotgun two days before Christmas in 2012. The coworker, Guillermo Diaz, 38, had not been laid off from the Santa Fe Springs skylight business where the two men had worked.
Handing down the sentence in a Norwalk courtroom, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge John Torribio said the killing stood out for its apparent senselessness.
“Two people lose their lives,” Torribio said, as reported by the Whittier Daily News. “The victim lost his and, Mr. Galvez, you lose yours.”
After the killing, Galvez encased Diaz’s body in cement and buried it under a makeshift shower he had built at an auto mechanic’s shop near the same industrial park where he worked, prosecutors said.
Whittier police were tipped off about a week later to the location of a possible killing. Authorities broke up the concrete and found Diaz’s body. Galvez was arrested within hours.
Galvez, who is also known as Juan Manuel Ramirez and was originally booked as Juan Galviz, was convicted of first-degree murder on Oct. 23. Jurors also found him guilty of a misdemeanor charge of methamphetamine possession.
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