BY LESLIE BERESTEIN, UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 24, 2010 AT 6:54 P.M.
CHULA VISTA — A man described in court by witnesses as a serial spousal abuser was sentenced yesterday to nearly 34 years to life in prison for murdering his girlfriend and setting their mobile home on fire in December 2006.
Larry W. Brown, 47, was convicted last month of first-degree murder in the strangulation death of Vicki Jo Hunter, 52. He was also convicted of arson and reckless driving. Brown was arrested after a 48-mile chase by a California Highway Patrol officer who spotted him driving Hunter’s car.
Deputy District Attorney Claudine Ruiz said Brown was evading domestic violence charges in Arkansas when he relocated to San Diego in the summer of 2006. That August he met Hunter, a bartender who lived in a mobile home campground on San Diego Bay, and moved in with her.
Ruiz said the couple moved the mobile home to the Kampgrounds of America campground in Chula Vista five days before Hunter was murdered. An employee there saw smoke coming from the motor home Dec. 6 and authorities who responded found Hunter’s body inside.
Ruiz said Hunter left behind a daughter from a previous marriage who is in her late teens.
During Brown’s trial in Chula Vista Superior Court, three ex-wives and one former girlfrend testified to being subjected to extreme physical abuse by the defendant. They described broken bones and strangulation to the point of unconsciousness, Ruiz said. While Brown had been convicted on other charges in Texas and Arkansas, including drug charges, he had not faced domestic violence charges until just before he fled to San Diego, Ruiz said.
Leslie Berestein: (619) 293-1542; leslie.berestein@uniontrib.com
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