Paso Robles woman found guilty of murder in ex-boyfriend's death

A jury found Monday that there was enough evidence to convict a Paso Robles woman of the murder of her former boyfriend even though she was not at the scene of the crime.

In a trial that hinged on one eyewitness’s testimony, Maria del Carmen Granados Fajardo, 51, was convicted in San Luis Obispo Superior Court of second-degree murder, robbery and assault with a deadly weapon. The defendant showed no emotion as a translator relayed the verdicts.

After a bitter breakup with Victor Hugo Sanchez, 37, Fajardo paid to have Sanchez injured on multiple occasions, the San Luis Obispo County District Attorney’s Office charged. In February 2013, Sanchez was found shot dead outside his Paso Robles apartment complex.

Fajardo had suggested to investigators that one of Sanchez’s other lovers had arranged for his murder. To bolster her claim, she showed detectives a threatening letter Sanchez had received from a female jail inmate, saying she’d harm him if he took a lover while she was incarcerated.

But Christine Garner, one of the alleged co-conspirators, testified that Fajardo paid her and her husband on two occasions to hurt Sanchez.

“She was the key to the outcome,” said Deputy District Attorney Craig Van Rooyen. “We needed somebody who had firsthand knowledge of what happened. ... Christine had to connect the dots back to (Fajardo).”

Garner, of Ceres, spent several days on the stand, offering a timeline that Van Rooyen said was collaborated by receipts, cell phone records and surveillance video.

“She had a really detailed memory,” Van Rooyen said.

While she agreed to testify in lieu of a plea bargain, Garner said under oath that she probably deserved more than the eight years she stands to get when she is sentenced Tuesday.

“She wasn’t trying to hide anything any more,” Van Rooyen said.

In October 2012, Garner told the jury, she participated in a plot that left Sanchez with a broken arm and several cuts. After that, she told the jury, Fajardo wanted Sanchez wounded more. Fajardo eventually paid to have someone shoot him in the knee caps, Garner said.

David Hernandez — Garner’s husband and Fajardo’s former brother-in-law — hired three teens to kidnap and shoot Sanchez in the knees, Garner said. Instead, Sanchez was shot in the head.

Van Rooyen said he does not know why Sanchez was killed. Hernandez and his three alleged accomplices are still at large.

“We’re going to need to find them,” he said.

Fajardo’s attorney, Paul Phillips, said the District Attorney’s Office did not offer his client a deal for lesser charges. But ultimately, he said, the jury did decide to go with a second-degree murder conviction rather than first.

“We just got something that wasn’t offered,” Phillips said.

A second-degree murder conviction carries a possible prison term of 15 years to life, while first-degree comes with a 25-to-life term.

Fajardo also faces up to nine years for the other counts, Phillips said.

While a cell phone expert testified that Fajardo spoke on the phone with Hernandez around the time of the murder, Garner alone “wrote the script,” Phillips said, providing the details of those calls.

“Are we ever going to know what was said?” Phillips asked after the verdict.

Fajardo will be sentenced Jan. 22.

This story was originally published December 15, 2014 at 5:21 PM with the headline "Paso Robles woman found guilty of murder in ex-boyfriend's death."