Fresno man sentenced to 32 years to life for murder outside Food Zombie store

A Fresno man found guilty of stabbing an unarmed man to death outside the Food Zombie convenience store in southeast Fresno last May was sentenced Thursday to 32 years to life in prison.

Deon Walker, 47, wearing a red jail uniform, sat calmly as the sentence was pronounced by Fresno County Superior Court Judge Timothy Kams.

A jury found Walker guilty in October of second-degree murder in the May 4 slaying of 27-year-old Daniel Patrick Apodaca Jr.

The punishment would have been 15 years to life, plus two years in enhancements, but was doubled under the state’s Three Strikes law. Walker has a previous conviction of assault with a deadly weapon, and offenses of robbery, burglary and identity theft.

Defense attorney Richard Esquivel asked the judge to use his judicial discretion to ignore the previous violent offense, or strike, in determining the sentence, but Kams said no.

“Mr. Walker had a chance to walk away and did not” from the altercation that ended in homicide, and he has a lengthy criminal record, the judge said.

At trial, Walker took the stand. He testified that he got into a physical altercation with Apodaca but did not stab him.

Prosecutor Ryan Wells said the evidence showed Walker committed the crime.

“He stabbed him for no reason at all,” Wells said.

Two other men at the scene also got into an altercation with Apodaca, and both testified that they didn’t see Walker with a knife and didn’t see the victim get stabbed.

But a video of the altercation convinced jurors that Walker was guilty, his defense attorney said after the trial. The video from the surveillance camera doesn’t show the actual stabbing, Esquivel said.

But jurors told him that they played the video in slow motion in the jury deliberation room and changed the contrast. Once they did that, they could see Walker making stabbing motions, Esquivel said.

“I never saw it (stabbing motions),” Esquivel said. “Apparently it was enough to find him guilty.”

During the trial, Walker testified that he didn’t know Apodaca when he rode his bicycle to the Food Zombie store at Belmont Avenue and First Street. He said he was minding his own business when Apodaca began to pick a fight with him.

“What’s up OG?” Apodaca said, according to Walker.

Walker said he tried to ignore Apodaca but couldn’t because Apodaca began hassling a homeless woman. He testified it appeared to him that Apodaca was drunk.

Walker said he got into a fistfight with Apodaca when the victim tried to grab Walker’s bicycle. Once the fighting stopped, Walker said, Apodaca got into an altercation with the two other men.

Walker testified that he thought “this guy is crazy” because he challenged him and the two other men to a fight at the same time.

Walker said he never saw anyone pull out a knife. Once the fighting stopped, Walker said he and the two other men left. “I had no reason or motive to harm him,” he told the jury.

A few days later, police arrested Walker. Police confiscated his utility knife.

During the trial, the prosecutor said the coroner testified that victim’s fatal wounds were similar to wounds from a utility knife. Walker, however, testified that utility knives are commonly used and that he used the knife to do landscaping and gardening.

Esquivel said there’s reason to doubt it was the murder weapon. The knife was tested, but the victim’s blood was not found on it, he said.

“Sheriff’s deputies carry the same type of utility knife,” Esquivel said after the verdict.

But he said the jurors told him the knife was not a key issue during deliberations. “It all came down to the video,” he said.

This story was originally published January 24, 2019 at 3:23 PM.