Sentencing scheduled for trio found guilty of 2016 murder

VISTA – Sentencing is scheduled for Friday, July 20, for Kevin Garcia, Tyler James Dean and Ryan Thomas Valdez, the trio convicted of murder in the January 2016 gang-related stabbing of a man outside a supermarket in Fallbrook.

Garcia, Dean and Valdez were all found guilty of second-degree murder in the stabbing death of 33-year-old Hugh Pettigrew III as he walked home from McDonald’s along Ammunition Road. Last December, the jury found that the three defendants had committed the attack as part of their affiliation with a Fallbrook gang.

Pettigrew managed to escape the attack and walk to his A...