The courts have reaffirmed a sentence given 4 years ago to a Happy Valley murderer. In February of 2019 at a home on Happy Valley Road at Gidden Ranch Road 39-year-old Michael Patrick O’Connell was holding a 12-gauge shotgun when he pounded on the bedroom door of his roommate, Adam Mancebo, demanding that he leave the home immediately. O’Connell then returned to the living room, where his mother was sitting on the couch. When Mancebo walked into the living room clearly unarmed with nothing in his hands, O’Connell almost immediately shot him in the chest with the shotgun. O’Connell’s mother ran outside and called 9-1-1. The following year a Shasta County jury found O’Connell guilty of first degree murder, with a special enhancement for the use of a firearm, and he was sentenced to 50-years-to-life in state prison. An appeals court this year sent the case back to Shasta County to allow Judge Stephen Baker to use discretion in the firearm enhancement. The re-sentencing hearing was Friday and the 50-to-life sentence was maintained.
-Steve Gibson