Matthew Gene Wartena, who already is serving 66 years in prison for a police chase that ended in a traffic fatality on Aug. 25, 2005, was sentenced Wednesday to 40 years for an unrelated shotgun murder three days earlier.
A jury found Wartena guilty of second-degree murder and car theft in January that resulted in the death of 25-year-old Aaron Rivera on Welby Road in unincorporated Adams County.
That sentence will run consecutive to the 66-year-sentence Wartena got on a second-degree murder and other charges stemming from a police chase in a stolen car on Aug. 28, 2005.
Wartena, 21, turned from car thief to murderer when he led police on a chase that ended when he crashed a stolen Honda into a Toyota 4Runner.
Brian Kapko, 19, of Costa Mesa, Calif., was killed in the crash on Interstate 270 near I-76 in Arvada. Two others in the 4Runner were injured.
The Honda had been stolen in Westminster, police said.
Earlier the day of the crash, an Arvada resident reportedly saw Wartena and a juvenile trying to pilfer cars along a street.
When he attempted to follow them, one of the men in the Honda fired a shotgun, wounding the man and starting the chase that ended in the traffic fatality.
