GOLDEN — One year to the day that Celia Meza was shot dead in the freezer of an Arvada Burger King restaurant, the triggerman and one of his accomplices were each sentenced today to life in prison plus 42 years.
Neither gunman Anthony John Lowe, 22, nor Thomas Johns, 18, said anything during the sentencing hearing before Jefferson County District Judge Jane Tidball.
But Arvada Police Chief Don Wick described the fear that spread through the normally peaceful and quiet residential neighborhood where Meza was slain and the unease that remains in the area, despite the arrest and conviction of the four men involved.
Wick said that the slaying of Meza, who worked as a cook at the restaurant, was a tragedy.
“She went to work at the Burger King. She was trying to do what we all are trying to do — live the American dream,” said the police chief.
Wick said the slaying had shocked the young officers and paramedics who responded to the Burger King, at West 64th Avenue and Ward Road, and found Meza.
“It impacted those officers who tried to save her life and the paramedics who tried to save her life,” said Wick. “All have suffered because of this senseless loss of life.”
Lowe, then 21, was the “muscle,” and Johns, who was 17, was the mastermind, prosecutors said, of the plot to rob the Burger King on July 15, 2007.
The Burger King night restaurant manager, Anthony Cole, 24, was the “inside man” and Lindell Mark Sample Jr., 18, was the getaway driver.
Cole, who testified against the others, was sentenced to 48 years, and Sample — who has yet to be sentenced — was convicted last week of all charges.
Lowe, Johns and Sample are former Burger King employees.
The murder was discovered on a blistering hot Sunday morning. Meza’s white Mazda 626 was the lone car in the parking lot near the Burger King.
Hours after Meza’s body was found, her husband, Carlos Rodriguez, drove up frantically trying to find his wife.
He said he had been trying to call her cellphone for hours but had gotten no response.
He described the 30-year-old woman as a “very nice person” and said he was deeply in love with her.
Moments later, after he passed under some crime scene tape, officers broke the news to him that Meza was dead.
Prosecutors had hoped Rodriguez would be at the sentencing, but he didn’t appear.
However, Alejandra Escobedo, Meza’s sister, spoke at the sentencing.
Escobedo said her sister was a very hard worker who cleaned houses, did ironing, worked at the Burger King and sent most of the money to Mexico to support her young daughter, Paulina.
She had not been scheduled to work the shift during which she was shot but was asked to fill in for another employee. Meza saw it as a chance to make some extra money, said Escobedo.
“She was a very smart person,” Escobedo said of Meza. “She was a very open person.”
“She didn’t deserve it,” said Escobedo. “She had a hard life. She left her home and went to work and never came back.”
Escobedo said that Meza had planned to return permanently to Mexico within days and dreamed of buying a computer for her daughter so the child could be better educated and have a better life than she had.
Escobedo said that she wished Johns and Lowe had spoken because she wanted to know what the last moments of her sister’s life were like.
“I’m sure her fear was a lot,” said Escobedo. “I just wish they would have told me her last words.”
Meza was shot by Lowe as she tried to call 911 on her cellphone from inside the freezer.
Escobedo said that she sensed no remorse from either man.
“They don’t deserve to be on the streets,” she said.
Howard Pankratz: 303-954-1939 or hpankratz@denverpost.com
