GARDEN GROVE : McHugh Slayer Gets 30 Years to Life

An airplane mechanic was sentenced to 30 years to life in prison Tuesday for murdering a Garden Grove grocery store clerk who got lost on her way to Santa Ynez to help friends who had car trouble.

Mitchell Herdman, 34, of Lompoc killed Stephanie McHugh, 20, with one rifle shot to the head on July 7, 1988, as she sat in her car on a darkened road, reading a map to get her bearings.

Santa Maria Superior Court Judge James Jennings imposed a mandatory term of 25 years to life for Herdman’s first-degree murder conviction and another mandatory, consecutive five-year term because he fired a gun into an inhabited vehicle, according to Bob H. Betzendorfer, a deputy public defender.

Betzendorfer said that when Herdman was permitted to speak before his sentencing, he insisted he was innocent.

The victim, who volunteered many hours to work with handicapped children and the elderly, was on her way to help friends who had bought her car. She had promised that if anything went wrong with the car, she would drive up and help. When she heard that the auto had broken down, she set out for Santa Ynez about 7 p.m., as soon as she finished her shift at a Garden Grove supermarket.

Near Buellton, McHugh became lost and stopped on the shoulder of California 154 to consult a map. A man in a pickup truck pulled up alongside her and fired one shot into her car.

Herdman was arrested the next day, based on a witness’s description of his truck and the suspicions of a sheriff’s deputy who had questioned Herdman a few hours before the shooting when he appeared to be drunk outside a local bar.