Jury Convicts Abeyta in Parking-Lot Killing

Atkins was unarmed, and the jury found the shot that killed him was murder. That is a conviction. The term is still ahead. Abeyta told the jury he threw the gun in a river. The gun has not been found. A judge sets the sentence on Jan. 4, and the maximum is 42 years to life.

Robert Anthony Abeyta, 38, was convicted Tuesday of second-degree murder in the killing of William Earl Atkins, 48. The Sacramento County jury also convicted him of being a felon in possession of a firearm and found that he personally fired the shot that killed Atkins.

The shooting was in the parking lot of an apartment complex in the 4600 block of Ashdale Court in Old Foothill Farms. About 12:20 a.m. on April 18, a resident reported a gunshot and a man on the grass. Deputies found Atkins there. Medics pronounced him dead at the scene.

Earlier that night, Abeyta called the sheriff's non-emergency line twice and reported that Atkins was acting erratically and bothering other residents. Deputies came after the first call and did not find him. After the second call, Abeyta confronted him in the lot before deputies returned. A neighbor's doorbell camera recorded Abeyta telling Atkins to watch himself. Atkins, who was unarmed, challenged him to a fight. Abeyta pulled a 9mm handgun from his pocket and shot him once in the chest, then left in his car. He turned himself in the next day.

Investigators never recovered the gun. At trial, Abeyta testified that he threw it in a river after the shooting. He is in the Sacramento County Main Jail. Sentencing is Jan. 4, 2027, at 1:30 p.m., before Judge Michael Bowman. The maximum term is 42 years to life.