SANTA ANA — A 25-year-old man has pleaded guilty and was immediately sentenced to 10 years in prison for killing a woman while speeding in a stolen SUV while high on methamphetamine in Anaheim.
Eric Matthew Martinez pleaded guilty Thursday to gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated, hit and run with permanent and serious injury, and theft with a prior felony conviction of driving or taking of a vehicle. He also admitted a sentencing enhancement for fleeing the scene of a vehicular manslaughter.
As part of the plea deal, a charge of driving under the influence of a drug causing injury, a felony, was dismissed along with a misdemeanor count of driving while addicted to a drug and sentencing enhancements for inflicting great bodily injury.
Martinez killed 44-year-old pedestrian Jana Goulding on April 22, 2023, according to court records. Anaheim police responded to the fatal crash at about 1:20 a.m. that day in the 700 block of North East Street, Sgt. Jon McClintock said.
Placentia police had been pursuing the driver of the stolen vehicle, who lost control and crashed on East Street, McClintock said. But Placentia police were not pursuing the vehicle at the time of the collision, he added.
Anaheim police arrested the suspect at about 9:10 a.m. after responding to a report of a suspicious person at a church in the 1400 block of East La Palma Avenue, McClintock said.
Martinez was accused in the criminal complaint of speeding, making unsafe lane changes, and driving the wrong way in the stolen 2012 BMW.
The defendant pleaded guilty Feb. 23, 2022, to theft with a prior felony conviction of driving or taking of a vehicle and buying or receiving a stolen vehicle or equipment, both misdemeanors, according to court records.
Source: Orange County Register
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