VAN NUYS : Brothers Given Life Terms in ’93 Slaying
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Two brothers convicted of raping a woman with a baseball bat, kicking her with steel-toed boots and fatally shooting her, execution-style, were sentenced Wednesday to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Van Nuys Superior Court Judge Kathryne Ann Stoltz sentenced Alejandro Verdugo, 24, and his brother, Daniel, 22, following a brief hearing.
Because prosecutors did not seek the death penalty, the sentence was the maximum the law allowed.
The February, 1993, incident provided a brutal end to the victim’s difficult life. According to a probation report, Suzanne Shapiro, 34, was given to a religious cult as a child. At one point, she had been married to the late Max Shapiro, one of Elvis Presley’s doctors.
She had been drinking the night she died at the Dugout Lounge, a Van Nuys bar. She was accosted in the parking lot, where her body was found the next morning.
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