SAN DIEGO
A man who admitted helping an acquaintance dispose of his roommate’s body the victim was stabbed 66 times, stuffed into a barrel and tossed into San Diego Bay was sentenced Thursday to nearly 11 years for that and two unrelated cases.
Derrick Spurgeon, 41, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of unlawfully disposing of a dead body, stemming from the 2017 death of 28-year-old Omar Medina.
For that count, he was sentenced to six months in custody. Additionally, Spurgeon was sentenced to more than 10 years in state prison for unrelated robbery and drug-related crimes.
The victim’s roommate, Timothy John Cook, was convicted by a San Diego jury of second-degree murder, and sentenced last year to 56 years to life in state prison.
On Thursday, Spurgeon was sentenced to six months in county jail following his guilty plea of unlawfully disposing of a dead body. Villegas said she was at the district attorney’s office watching a livestream of the sentencing.
“Today was a very special day to me because this most definitely feels like closure,” Villegas said. “This was the last time that I knew that I was going to have to, you know, go through this with him, especially since he’s pleading guilty, which I was very thankful for. It was difficult to just relive that.”
Villegas, who was the last family member to see her brother alive, recalled the gut-wrenching desperation her family felt when they hadn’t heard from Medina before they learned of his tragic end. During Thursday’s sentencing, Villegas said she was able to say a few words to Spurgeon.