From wire service reports
Posted: 09/09/2010 12:24:18 PM PDT
Updated: 09/09/2010 12:24:20 PM PDT
A man who murdered his girlfriend outside a Los Angeles bowling alley and then tried to kill four police officers during a standoff at a Glendale cemetery was sentenced today to 227 years to life in state prison.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge John S. Fisher denied the defense's motion for a new trial for 31-year-old Rene Sajid Munoz of Los Angeles, saying the main charge -- the murder count -- involved a "horrible killing."
Munoz said after being sentenced that he had not gotten a fair trial and that "there was not substantial evidence."
"... I didn't do it," he said before being led into a courtroom lockup.
Munoz was convicted May 4 of first-degree murder in the April 3, 2008, shooting death of Kelly McCowen outside a bowling alley in the Mid-City area of Los Angeles, and four counts of attempted murder involving a shot fired in the direction of four police officers who responded to Forest Lawn Memorial Park- Glendale.
Jurors also convicted Munoz of nine counts of assault with a firearm on a peace officer.
Munoz drove to the cemetery after shooting his 37-year-old girlfriend, whom he believed had been unfaithful to him. He parked his sport-utility vehicle on top of his father's gravestone and began calling friends to tell them what he had done, said Deputy District Attorney Marguerite Rizzo.
Glendale police -- who were responding to a call of shots fired at the cemetery -- were met with gunfire, and officers
heard "a loud blast coming at them from the right," Rizzo said.
The officers called for backup -- a SWAT vehicle was sent to the scene -- and officers fired at Munoz as he sped toward a roadblock that had been set up in the cemetery, authorities said.
Munoz was treated for a gunshot wound and has remained jailed since then.
The prosecutor said "justice was served" with the lengthy prison sentence, noting that Munoz was recorded admitting that he had shot his girlfriend.
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