By Allison Jarrell
Twenty-two-year-old Ashton Sachs was convicted on Tuesday of shooting and killing his parents, Andra and Bradford Sachs, and attempting to murder two of his siblings in his family’s San Juan Capistrano home on Feb. 9, 2014.
Sachs pleaded guilty during the Sept. 20 hearing to “two felony counts of special circumstances murder for committing multiple murders, two felony counts of attempted murder with premeditation and deliberation, and sentencing enhancements for the personal use of a firearm causing death, personal use of a firearm causing bodily injury, and causing paralysis,” according to the Orange County District Attorney’s office.
Sachs was attending North Seattle College and living in Seattle at the time of the crime. Prosecutors said he returned to Orange County with the “intention of murdering his family.”
“In the early morning hours of Feb. 9, 2014, he entered his family’s San Juan Capistrano home armed with a firearm,” prosecutors said. “The defendant entered his parents’ bedroom and shot and murdered his 54-year-old mother Andra Sachs and 57-year-old father Bradford Sachs as they slept.”
Sachs then entered the bedroom of his 8-year-old brother and shot him. The boy survived but was left paralyzed.
Sachs’ two sisters were also inside the home at the time of the shooting. Prosecutors said he attempted to murder his 17-year-old sister by shooting her, but he missed.
Sachs fled the crime scene and returned to Seattle.
The bodies of Sachs’ parents were found in their multimillion dollar Peppertree Bend home just before 2 a.m. Following an investigation by the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, Sachs was arrested on March 6, 2014.
After pleading guilty on Tuesday, Sachs faces life in state prison without the possibility of parole. He is scheduled to be sentenced on Oct. 14 at 9 a.m. in Department C-35 of the Central Justice Center in Santa Ana.
Discussion about this post