Man gets 25 years in prison for fatally stabbing girlfriend in Moreno Valley – Press Enterprise

RIVERSIDE — A probationer who fatally stabbed his 23-year-old girlfriend after imagining her trying to harm him while they slept at his father's house in Moreno Valley was destined for state prison Monday to serve a sentence of 25 years to life in prison.

Ricardo Rivera, 28, pleaded guilty in April to first-degree murder under an agreement with the Riverside County District Attorney's Office.

At a hearing Friday at the Riverside Hall of Justice, Superior Court Judge Jason Armand certified the terms of the plea agreement and imposed the sentence stipulated by the prosecution and defense.

Rivera murdered Ashley Brosious of Moreno Valley on the afternoon of January 17, 2019, at her father's residence at 23161 Denver Court, near Adeline Avenue.

According to briefs filed by the prosecution and defense, Rivera was a habitual drug user, as was Brosious, and their two-year relationship, born out of working together in an Amazon warehouse, was filled with short breakups due to to mutual distrust.

Rivera regularly smoked methamphetamine, and a day before the killing he was hospitalized after walking the streets of Moreno Valley in an incoherent, zombie-like state, according to court documents.

After he was released from the hospital on January 17, 2019, he slept most of the day, as did Brosious, in the southeast bedroom of his father's one-story home.

The defense said in its pretrial brief that when the defendant woke up around 5 p.m., he was “in a methamphetamine-induced daze and he thought Brosious was trying to harm him.”

Prosecutors said Rivera went to the kitchen and grabbed an 8-inch chef's knife, then returned to the bedroom and plunged it into the left side of his sleeping girlfriend's neck, visibly severing one artery.

Rivera's father returned home within an hour and found Brosious lying in a pool of blood, prompting him to call 911, according to charges.

Sheriff's deputies and paramedics arrived a short time later and found the woman dead at the scene.

Sgt. Ben Ramirez said the defendant was at the home and was taken into custody without incident.

Rivera had a previous conviction for domestic violence involving his ex-girlfriend, identified only as “VT,” whom he choked until she lost consciousness during an argument in 2017, according to court records.