Man gets life in prison for deadly shooting and dumping body in Placer County
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- A Placer Superior Court judge sentenced Fernando Jimenez to life in prison without parole.
- Jimenez was found guilty of murder for the shooting of Richard Rodrick Williams.
- Prosecutors said was in mental health diversion program when he committed the 2023 murder.
A Placer Superior Court judge on Monday sentenced a man to life in prison without the possibility of parole for a 2023 murder in which the victim was shot to death in another county before his body was left in a Rocklin parking lot.
A jury on March 20 found Fernando Jimenez, 51, guilty of first-degree murder in the shooting of 45-year-old Richard Rodrick Williams.
In a news release Monday, the Placer County District Attorney’s Office said Jimenez was free from custody and a participant in California’s mental health diversion program when he committed this murder.
At the time of Williams’ death, Jimenez had already been convicted of murder and served a lengthy prison sentence in Nevada. Jimenez was also facing violent felony charges in another criminal case in Sacramento County when he was allowed to participate in a court-ordered mental health diversion program.
“This case highlights the very real dangers that mental health diversion presents to communities across the state,” Placer County District Attorney Morgan Gire said in a statement. “California needs to take mental health diversion reform seriously to ensure this program is working as originally intended and not giving dangerous criminals a pass to put more residents in harm’s way.”
Williams’ body was discovered about 8 p.m. on Dec. 20, 2023, outside an Ace Hardware Distribution Center near Industrial Way and Cyber Court in Rocklin, according to the Placer County Sheriff’s Office.
Prosecutors said an employee arrived for work that evening and discovered an unresponsive man on the ground in the parking lot. Deputies quickly determined Williams was dead, and he had suffered a fatal gunshot wound to the head.
Detectives from the sheriff’s Major Crimes Unit reviewed security camera video from the nearby warehouse and surrounding area, and they spotted a vehicle that entered the parking lot shortly before Williams’ body was abandoned. Prosecutors said the detectives traced the vehicle to Jimenez and found him the following morning.
Investigators searched and found blood evidence in Jimenez’s apartment and vehicle, and security camera video at Jimenez’s home showed him moving Williams’ body in a large cooler using a hand truck before loading the body in his vehicle, according to the District Attorney’s Office.
Prosecutors said Jimenez got rid of Williams’ cellphone, blankets, towels, furniture and other items connected to the murder to destroy evidence.
Jimenez initially denied involvement in Williams’ murder, prosecutors said, but he later admitted to transporting and disposing Williams’ body. Investigators determined Williams was killed in another county before his body was abandoned in the Rocklin parking lot.
Jimenez’s murder conviction included an enhancement for using a gun in the killing along with a special circumstance enhancement for the previous murder conviction that qualified him as a third-strike offender under California’s “three-strikes” law.
Prosecutors said Jimenez was previously convicted of second-degree murder and attempted murder in Nevada. They said he served a lengthy prison sentence before moving to California.
In a June 2024 article on California’s mental health courts, CBS News reported that Jimenez was arrested after violently attacking his elderly female neighbor over a disagreement, investigators said, about dog waste left in the common areas of their apartment complex. Court records showed Jimenez cracked the woman’s orbital socket and was charged with battery with serious bodily injury. The battery criminal case was in Sacramento County, Cal Matters reported.
In the felony battery case, the court later granted Jimenez’s request to participate in the mental health diversion program despite the prosecutor’s objections, Gire said Monday.
“The defendant had previously been convicted of murder and attempted murder, was facing additional violent felony charges, and was participating in mental health diversion when he committed another homicide,” Gire said in the news release.
In its sentencing report, the Placer County Probation Department described Jimenez as “cruel, callous, and particularly violent” with a “disturbing lack of empathy and regard for the victim and human life,” and he poses a “clear and ongoing danger to the community,” according to the news release.
