A man who beat and strangled a woman in Scripps Ranch more than 35 years ago was sentenced Friday to 25 years to life in state prison.<\/p>\n
Randall Oyler, 65, was found guilty by a downtown San Diego Superior Court jury of first-degree murder for killing 47-year-old Margaret Orozco Jackson, whose body was discovered on July 11, 1990, off Scripps Ranch Boulevard, where Scripps Ranch High School would later be built.<\/p>\n
Deputy District Attorney Chris Lindberg told jurors that a woman walking to work on July 11 spotted a length of rope on the sidewalk, which led down the hill to Jackson\u2019s body. The rope was wrapped twice around the victim\u2019s neck, the prosecutor said.<\/p>\n
Oyler was not identified as a suspect until DNA testing conducted decades later linked him to DNA found beneath the victim\u2019s fingernails, as well as from other areas of her body, the prosecutor said.<\/p>\n
Oyler was arrested on suspicion of murder in 2023.<\/p>\n
At Oyler\u2019s sentencing hearing on Friday morning, Lindberg called the killing unprovoked and \u201ca brutal attack\u201d in which Jackson was strangled for five to six minutes.<\/p>\n
In a probation report interview, Oyler stated that Jackson stole drugs from him, though Lindberg noted that when Oyler was placed in a cell with an undercover jail operative posing as an inmate, he made several incriminating statements related to Jackson\u2019s killing, but never mentioned a drug theft.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile no one really knows if this is true, such a slight provocation is no excuse for such a cruel murder,\u201d Lindberg wrote in a sentencing memorandum.<\/p>\n
In video clips of the jail operation played during the trial, the two men can be heard discussing why Oyler was arrested.<\/p>\n
At one point, Oyler says, \u201cShe scratched me.\u201d<\/p>\n
In another clip, the operative asks Oyler if he \u201cjust left her there,\u201d and Oyler responds that he \u201cthrew her down a hill.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jackson\u2019s niece, Rebecca Cepeda, called Oyler \u201ca monster\u201d at Friday\u2019s hearing.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou took her life, and for what? Now you\u2019re going to spend, who knows, the rest of your life in prison, and for nothing,\u201d Cepeda said.<\/p>\n
Oyler did not make a statement in court, but his defense attorney, Kara Oien, said on his behalf, \u201cHe does want to say he is sorry and express his condolences to the family. He knows that doesn\u2019t excuse anything, but does wish to say he is sorry.\u201d<\/p>\n
Judge Jeffrey Fraser said he believed there was \u201cno doubt\u201d that Oyler committed the murder and \u201che did get away with it for over three decades.\u201d<\/p>\n
The judge said, \u201cThere used to be a saying that, \u2018Justice delayed is justice denied,\u2019 and to a large extent that\u2019s true, but it\u2019s not true today.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man who beat and strangled a woman in Scripps Ranch more than 35 years ago was sentenced…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":287206,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[7,1312,138,181,23,100,74,84,76,75,5953],"class_list":["post-376332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-california","tag-courts","tag-crime-and-public-safety","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-county","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-scripps-ranch"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=376332"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376332\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/287206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=376332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=376332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=376332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}