“I still can’t believe my mother was the victim of a violent crime.
“This has been a long, painful journey through the criminal court justice system,” Assad’s daughter, Mary Assad, said in the victim impact statement she read to the court. Their sentences for robbery and elder abuse were stayed under the legal tenet that those crimes were part of a single act, the murder of Afaf Assad. Kimesha Monae Williams, 39, and Candace Tai Townsel, 42, who both have long rap sheets for theft, were convicted in February at Southwest Justice Center in French Valley of murder, robbery and elder abuse, along with a sentencing enhancement of committing a robbery during a murder, after a monthlong trial. Two Moreno Valley women were sentenced to life in prison without parole on Friday, April 21, for killing an 84-year-old Long Beach woman who was found unconscious with a cracked skull on the floor of a Pechanga Resort Casino bathroom in 2019.
