Man convicted of killing, decapitating and burying woman in Huntington Beach given 30 years to life

A 37-year-old transient was sentenced Friday to 30 years to life in prison by an Orange County Superior Court judge who said if he could he would have punished the defendant even more for killing a homeless woman and then decapitating her and burying her in the backyard of his family’s Huntington Beach home.

Antonio Padilla was convicted Feb. 18 of second-degree murder in the June 30, 2022, killing of 60-year-old Regina “Gina” Marie Lockhart.

Lockhart was a “well-known transient” in the city, Senior Deputy Dist. Atty. Janine Madera told jurors in her opening statement of Padilla’s trial.

“She frequented Beach Boulevard and Slater Avenue,” Madera added. “She was a veritable fixture.”

Orange County Superior Court Judge Gary Paer declined a request from defense attorney Daniel Kim of the Orange County Public Defender’s Office to not consider a prior strike for Padilla in sentencing.

Paer noted the defendant was convicted of a violent felony and that the prior conviction was 11 years ago, so it was not “extremely remote. ... And that prior strike was one of violence.”

The prior strike conviction was a felony assault, but Madera said he also “split the head open of his mother,” but it wasn’t reported.

Padilla’s crime showed a “high degree of cruelty” and it was done while he was on probation, Paer said.

Paer said he would not consider probation for Padilla, whom he described as a “frequent flier in the criminal justice system” and who had been imprisoned three times before.

“I view Mr. Padilla as a threat to public safety,’’ Paer said. “If I had more time to give him, I would give him more time. I view him as dangerous. Hopefully, he’ll be off the streets for a very long time and we won’t have to worry about him killing someone again, cutting off their heads and burying them.”

Padilla has 1,000 days of credit behind bars awaiting sentencing.

Paer even wrestled with how to handle Padilla’s probation terms for “shooting up” the Huntington Beach police station with a pellet gun. Paer wanted to handle the probation violation so that he would still be liable for restitution to the police.

“There’s no good reason to let him slide on that,” Paer said.

Paer also noted how “vulnerable” the victim was given her difference in size with the defendant. She was 5-foot-4 and weighed only 70 pounds, according to Madera.

She was also an alcoholic who visited the local emergency room multiple times before her death, Madera said. She sought treatment for alcohol poisoning and injuries from falls, she added.

Lockhart was in “regular phone contact” with her mother, Donna Ashbaugh, Madera said in the trial. She had a boyfriend, Rick Bernhardt, who was also homeless, the prosecutor added.

Lockhart was last seen on surveillance video about 9 a.m. the day of her death at Primo Liquor, at a Walgreens and a Chevron station, Madera said.

Emilia Martinez Jaramillo, who worked in a taco food truck, saw Lockhart about 4:30 p.m. that day, Madera said. Lockhart appeared to be in distress, so Jaramillo “asked her if she needed any help and the victim kept walking” away, Madera said.

Padilla was also a transient and would sometimes flop at his parents’ backyard shed for their double-wide trailer home at 7850 Slater Ave., near Beach Boulevard, Madera said.

Padilla’s mother, Rosario Cendejas, began noticing a fetid odor around the shed on the July Fourth weekend, according to Madera. The defendant’s sister, Lolita Guevara, who also lived in the family’s mobile home, started sniffing the foul odor around July 7 or July 8.

She also noticed about that time that her brother had shaved his head, Madera said.

In her closing argument, Madera said the body had to have been hidden before it was buried. It was probably hidden for about 10 to 11 days before he buried it, according to Madera.

“It might have been that he hid her in that trash can, possibly behind the dryer,” Madera said. “And only the defendant was strong enough to move the dryer.”

The large dryer would have obscured the trash can from his family, Madera argued.

The victim was hog-tied to fit her in the trash can, Madera said.

On July 10, the defendant’s mother saw him digging a hole in the backyard and also heard “loud noises” in the metal shed, Madera said. The defendant was attempting to fill the hole with concrete and the smell worsened.

When Padilla’s mother questioned him about maggot-infested bloody blankets he was holding, he “threatened her,” prompting Cendejas to call 911, Madera said.

When officers responded and checked the backyard, they told Padilla’s mother and sister the source of the foul smell was probably a dead animal and advised them to clean the shed.

Cendejas went to work on cleaning the shed, using bleach on the ground that wiped out some forensic evidence, but investigators were later able to recover the victim’s DNA on it, Madera said. The defendant’s mother also found a patch of scalp with hair that was from the victim.

Cendejas also found some old Vans shoes missing laces, the prosecutor said. She again called police on July 16 and when she told officers about her son’s digging, they began investigating and “unearthed the body,” Madera said.

Lockhart was hog-tied with the shoelaces “and she had been decapitated,” Madera said. “Her head was found underneath her body.’”

Investigators found a knife in the shed that had the DNA of the defendant and the victim, Madera said. The decapitation was a “clean cut,” meaning the head was slashed off without “hesitation,” Madera said.

Investigators believe the victim was decapitated and hog-tied after she had died, Madera said.

The pathologist who examined the body ruled out natural causes for the death such as liver disease and other maladies associated with alcoholism, Madera said. The pathologist could not rule out suffocation or strangulation as possible causes of death.

The beheading made it difficult for the experts to determine if the victim had been choked to death, Madera said.

When police questioned Padilla, he was dishonest and “tried to distance himself from the shed,” and “denied smelling any odor” and “denied talking to his mother about the odor,” Madera said.

The defendant’s sister, Lolita Guevara, last year told investigators she recalled hearing “screaming” from someone with a “raspy voice” before the awful smell surfaced, Madera said.

“The sound was quickly muffled,” Madera said. “She was so upset, she circled the date on her calendar and told her husband about it.” But she didn’t tell investigators about it when the body was found, Madera said.

On March 12, 2024, the defendant posted crime scene photos of the victim’s head and decapitated body on his jail cell “as a trophy,” Madera said.

Dr. Aruna Singhania of the Orange County coroner’s office listed the cause of death as “undetermined,” Kim said during the trial.

“She noted no signs of struggle, no signs of external trauma” on the body, Kim said.

Lockhart’s “health was deteriorating,” Kim said.

In one of her hospital visits prior to her death, she suffered seizures for two minutes and had to be stabilized with medication before her release, Kim said. She sought aid for alcohol poisoning and overdose on June 24, 2022, Kim said.

Lockhart was back in an emergency room again on June 25 and June 26, 2022, Kim said.

In the last surveillance video to capture footage of the victim, she was seen toting two liters of vodka, Kim said. When the food truck employee saw her, she was clutching her stomach in pain.