A man convicted of fatally stabbing his girlfriend in San Marcos has been sentenced to 26 years to life in state prison.
Ziyah Jay Patterson, 31, was found guilty Thursday by a Vista jury of first-degree murder and an allegation of using a knife in the Dec. 26, 2023, stabbing of 42-year-old Angela Marie Lanway.
Prosecutors said Patterson and Lanway, who were homeless and living behind a local business at the time, got into an argument after Lanway asked Patterson to turn down his music.
Patterson then asked the victim to give back a gift he had given her —identified in a prosecution's sentencing brief as a blanket — and she threw it at him.
Patterson then beat her and stabbed her multiple times in the head,leaving her with stab wounds to her ear and neck, according to the San Diego County District Attorney's Office.
He later called 911 and said, ``She threw something at me. I was scared. I stabbed her in the side of the head,'' prosecutors wrote in their sentencing documents.