Man who killed teen to be sentenced

A Costa Mesa man who beat a teenage girl to death in 2001 could be given up to 25 years to life in prison today when he’s sentenced at Orange County’s Central Justice Center in Santa Ana.

Victor Manuel Garcia, 25, was convicted in July of murdering Ceceline Godsoe, 16, in Costa Mesa’s Fairview Park one September night in 2001.

At the time, Garcia was celebrating the birth of his first daughter with friends by drinking at the park in the middle of the night.

He was 17 at the time and his wife was still in the hospital after giving birth.

According to testimony during Garcia’s trial, Garcia met Godsoe when she and a friend also went there to drink.

The two groups met up and the two teenagers hit it off. While everyone hung out, witnesses testified that Godsoe and Garcia said they’d be back and walked off together. It was the last time Godsoe was seen alive.

More than an hour later, Godsoe’s body was found near the western edge of the park next to a cliff, beaten, bloodied and covered in insects. She had a broken jaw and bruises and cuts on her neck, face and head. The coroner at the time concluded that she drowned in her own blood.

Garcia fled to Mexico days after the murder and was extradited back to the states in 2004.

He is scheduled to be sentenced at 9 a.m. in courtroom C-40.

— Joseph Serna