The man being held in the February assault of a former Yachats man in southern California is now charged with his murder, the San Diego District Attorney’s office said Wednesday.
Martin Baker, a formerly homeless man who found shelter and friendship through the Yachats Community Presbyterian Church, died a few days after the Feb. 19 attack. Baker had left Yachats in 2020 to return to his hometown of Borrego Springs, a small desert community northeast of San Diego.
Deputy District Attorney Kim Coulter called Baker’s family in California on Tuesday to inform them of the murder charge. She confirmed that to YachatsNews on Wednesday.
Eugene (Gene) Focarelli, 37, is scheduled to be arraigned and enter a plea July 24.
Focarelli could face a maximum term of 25 years to life on the charge, Coulter said, but “He does have a few other open cases with our office,” she said. Those cases — all of which occurred within a few days in February — include a felony vandalism and elder abuse.
“He (Focarelli) has one strike already,” Coulter said — a first-degree burglary conviction from 2003. Under California’s “three strikes” sentencing law, defendants can be sentenced to prison for 25-years to life if they’re convicted of three violent or serious felonies. “Second strikers,” which Focarelli would be if convicted, also receive a double sentence.
Focarelli has been held at the San Diego Central Jail since February on assault charges with bail of $200,200. The murder charge added this week was “based on the Medical Examiner’s report, which finally came back,” Coulter said.
There was apparently some confusion over a case of pneumonia that Baker suffered once hospitalized.
Sarah Ventresca, one of Baker’s sisters, said that pneumonia was initially thought to be the cause of death, but that was changed to homicide once the medical examiner’s report showed that the pneumonia developed after Baker was hospitalized.
Ventresca told YachatsNews that a sheriff’s deputy in Borrego Springs told her that Baker had “regained consciousness after the attack, and named Focarelli as his attacker.”
— Cheryl Romano, YachatsNews.com