One of the four defendants found guilty of fatally pummeling a Chinese graduate student at USC during a robbery in 2014 was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Andrew Garcia, 21, was convicted of first-degree murder in June. Xinran Ji, an engineering student who had been walking home from a study group late at night. Garcia, along with co-defendants Alejandra Guerrero, 19; Jonathan Del Carmen, 22; and Alberto Ochoa, 20, attacked Ji with a baseball bat and wrench about 12:45 a.m. on July 24 because they believed he had money, prosecutors said.
Ji managed to escape the violent assault, a trail of blood led back to his apartment a quarter-mile away, where his roommate found him dead hours later.