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Antonio Padilla, a 34-year-old transient, was convicted on Tuesday of killing, decapitating and burying Gina Lockhart, a 60-year-old homeless woman whose body was found weeks later in the backyard of his family’s Huntington Beach home.
Police found Lockhart’s body at a Huntington Beach mobile park in 2022. She had been decapitated and hog-tied prior to her burial by Padilla, according to the Patch.
Lockhart was well-known at shopping centers surrounding Beach Boulevard and Slater Avenue, according to the O.C. Register.
Padilla would sometimes flop at his parents’ backyard shed at their double-wide trailer home at 7850 Slater Ave., near Beach Boulevard, according to the police.
Padilla’s mother, Rosario Cendejas, began noticing a rotten odor around the shed on the July Fourth weekend, according to O.C. Senior Deputy District Attorney Janine Madera.
Madera also reported that Padilla’s sister, Lolita Guevara, who also lived at the family’s mobile home, started sniffing the stinky odor around July 7 or July 8.
Padilla is set to be sentenced on April 11.
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