The man who brutally stabbed a Colusa woman to death more than 20 years ago when he was just 16-years-old became eligible for parole this month.
Joshua L. Valentine, 37, is scheduled for his first parole hearing on March 1, 2022, after his hearing on Tuesday was postponed.
Valentine was sentenced to 25-years-to-life on July 23, 2001, for his part in the slaying of Mary Lewis, 68, on Aug. 4, 2000, inside her Oak Street apartment.
Valentine, and then 19-year-old Ralph Dale Leon, admitted they bound Lewis hand and foot before they tortured and stabbed her more than 90 times, tearing her flesh from her body with a 3-inch pocket knife.
The teens then ransacked her home, stole jewelry, $10 in cash, and Lewis’ car, which they crashed into a fence in Sutter a short time after the murder, prompting the homeowner to call law enforcement and report that two young men had fled on foot.
California Highway Patrol officers traced the car to Lewis’ apartment and found her door ajar and blood in the doorway. The CHP then called the Colusa Police Department and officers entered to find Lewis’ bound body in her blood-soaked living room.
Valentine was facing life without parole when he was identified, captured, and charged about three weeks after the killing. Leon was facing the death penalty. Both admitted they killed Lewis and pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in order to have a chance at eventual freedom.
Lewis’ death was not the only murder perpetrated by local teens. Three years earlier, two Colusa teenagers beat and stabbed a close friend to death. One of the teens in that case has already been released from prison. The other, Nathan Ramazzini, 40, the younger of the two at the time of the murder, was sentenced to life without parole, although California laws have changed to allow murderers who committed their crimes as juveniles a chance at eventual freedom. Ramazzini’s first parole hearing is tentatively scheduled for March 11, 2022.
In 2012, two other Colusa teens shot and killed a 14-year-old boy, thought to be a member of a rival gang. Both pleaded no contest to voluntary manslaughter and were sentenced to 15 and 20 years in prison, respectively. One of the boys has been released. The second, Armando G. Leon, now 25, received his initial parole consultation on May 11, but won’t be eligible for release until 2027, due to disciplinary problems while incarcerated.
Colusa County Superior Court Judge William S. Abel, in sentencing Lewis’s killers 21 years ago, said he expectedValenitne to possibly gain his eventual release.
Because Ralph Leon showed no remorse for the crime, Abel said he hoped the state would keep him locked up for the remainder of his life. Leon will not be eligible for parole until 2024, due to disciplinary issues while incarcerated.
During Valentine’s sentencing hearing, a victim’s advocate read the impact statement from Lewis’ daughter, Rosemary Moye, who said she had hoped for the court to show no mercy for the killers, because they had shown no mercy for her mother.
Lewis’ granddaughter, Tosha Adams, had tearfully told the court that she had planned to meet her grandmother for lunch that next day, but had arrived to find the street blocked off and Colusa Police Lt. Ross Stark, who informed her of her grandmother’s tragic death. ■