Getaway driver turned down a plea deal. Now she’ll serve life for 2009 double murder.

The getaway driver in the the 2009 slayings of a Kerman couple was sentenced Tuesday in Fresno County Superior Court to two terms of life in prison without parole, plus three years for evading police during a high-speed chase from the bloody crime scene.

Dawn Singh, wearing bright red lipstick and a green jail jumpsuit, showed no reaction when her punishment was announced. Prior to her trial, she turned down a plea deal that would have resulted in 25 years in prison.

A jury last month found her guilty of of two counts of first-degree murder in the killings of of Sandra and Gary De Bartolo, whose throats were slashed on the morning of July 22, 2009, inside their El Mar Avenue home that had an indoor marijuana-growing operation.

Jurors also found true the special allegation that the murders were in the commission of a robbery and residential burglary.

Judge John Vogt said Tuesday he had little discretion in sentencing Singh, 42, of Fresno, since the special allegation mandated life in prison without parole.

Vogt and prosecutor Gabriel Brickey, however, expressed concern that probation officials said in a pre-sentence report that there were no factors in aggravation.

According to the report, Singh told probation officials that she was asked to drive to Kerman to purchase marijuana. Unbeknownst to her, she said, the trip turned into a home-invasion robbery and then murder.

Vogt, however, said Singh had made more than one trip to the De Bartolo home before they were killed. Brickey said the crime “took planning and sophistication” because everyone involved had a designated role.

Singh was the first of six defendants to stand trial. Court records say Jose Reyes, 26. Chris Bernard Butler, 40, and Andrew DaWayne Jones, 25, accepted plea deals to testify against Singh, Neko Wilson, 34, and Leroy Johnson, 49. Singh chose to stand trial alone because Wilson and Johnson have filed numerous motions that have delayed their trials.

Sandra De Bartolo, a secretary at Kerman High School, and Gary De Bartolo, who owned an auto glass repair business, were married 42 years.

During her trial, Brickey told the jury that Singh was a major participant in a plan to steal the couple’s stash of high-grade marijuana. Brickey said Singh helped Jose Reyes get a gun before he went inside the De Bartolo home. In addition, Singh told her accomplices that if they grabbed Sandra De Bartolo, her husband would easily turn over the marijuana, Brickey said.

The evidence revealed that only Johnson and Reyes went inside the home. Singh, however, played a key role in the crime, Brickey said, because Butler told law enforcement that when Singh pulled up to the De Bartolo home, she saw the front door open and said: “It’s perfect. Go in.”

During testimony, jurors heard Gary De Bartolo’s 911 call in which he tells police dispatch that his wife has been murdered. He is then killed while making the call.

After the De Bartolos were killed, Brickey said, Singh never expressed shock or remorse. Instead, she threw a towel to one of her accomplices in the back seat and told him to clean up blood in her car.

At the time of the killings, the De Bartolo home was under surveillance by Kerman police, the Sheriff’s Office and the California Highway Patrol after law enforcement received a tip that an Asian gang was planning to rob the couple of their marijuana. After the killings, Singh led the authorities on a high-speed chase from Kerman to Fresno. During the pursuit she drove more than 130 mph while talking on her cellphone and ran several stop signs and stoplights before crashing into a car outside a Fresno wrecking yard at Jensen Avenue and Golden State Boulevard, Brickey said.

Singh was tried under a felony-murder rule that says if a killing occurs during the commission or attempted commission of a felony (robbery or residential burglary), any person participating in the felony can also be convicted of murder.

In defending Singh, Fresno defense attorney Eric Green said Singh never left her car and didn’t know that Sandra and Gary De Bartolo would be killed.

After Tuesday’s sentencing hearing, Green told reporters that the felony-murder rule was unfair because it doesn’t take into account what an accomplice does on his or her own accord. In this case, Green said, the evidence showed that Johnson killed the De Bartolos on his own accord. “She didn’t know this nut was going to kill these people,” Green said, adding that he hopes a jury convicts Johnson of the double murder.

This story was originally published November 8, 2016 at 10:55 AM with the headline "Getaway driver turned down a plea deal. Now she’ll serve life for 2009 double murder.."