Salsa killer heads to prison.
Our colleague Ms. Maeshiro has a wild tale out of Lancaster which I'll excerpt below. What really got me was the headline: "Salsa-slayer gets 11 years behind bars."
LANCASTER - A 19-year-old Lancaster man has been ordered to serve 11 years in prison for throwing a bottle of salsa that fatally injured a volunteer collecting donations for the homeless.
The case of Joseph Peterson started out as a relatively minor affair when he was accused of stealing M&Ms and Twizzlers from a discount store.
When Peterson fled with the candy, Charles Hairston, a 51-year-old homeless-group volunteer, tried to stop him, sheriff's officials said. Peterson threw the bottle, hitting him in the head. Hairston died three weeks later.
Peterson pleaded no contest Wednesday to voluntary manslaughter after prosecutors agreed to dismiss a charge of murder. He was sentenced to 11 years.
The whole story's here.
It just reminds you how fragile life can be, where an innocent guy tries to do the right thing and gets killed over some candy and a bottle of sauce. That's a true tragedy.