Man could face up to life in prison for 2010 murder of Camille Love in Tacoma
A 30-year-old man could face up to life in prison after pleading guilty in the 2010 shooting death of Camille Love in Tacoma.
Santiago Villalva Mederos pleaded guilty Oct. 11 in Pierce County Superior Court to first-degree murder in the death of the 20-year-old Love. He is to be sentenced Dec. 10.
The maximum sentence Mederos could face is life in prison, but prosecutors said they will recommend to the judge that he serve a 35-year sentence as part of a plea agreement.
In his plea statement, Mederos said he helped someone else shoot and kill Love and said he was an accomplice in her murder.
Prosecutors have said the killing was gang-related.
According to court records, Love and her brother, Josh, were driving to a friend’s house Feb. 7, 2010, when Mederos and at least one other person opened fire on the car. Camille Love was killed in the barrage. Josh Love was injured but survived.
In court Monday, Josh Love told KIRO 7 News he plans to speak at Mederos’ sentencing hearing.
“I want to be able to see these guys and let them at least know that this stuff didn’t completely destroy me,” Love told the news station. “I don’t think he’s taken accountability for it at all. Taking accountability is standing up, coming and finding somebody, like, ‘Hey, I did this and I was wrong.’”
Mederos also was charged with second-degree murder in a separate Tacoma case, the death of Saul Lucas-Alfonso in March 2010. On Monday, the state dismissed the case against Mederos in exchange for his guilty plea in the death of Camille Love.
A little less than a month after Lucas-Alfonso was killed in 2010, Tacoma gang leader Juan Zuniga was assassinated in the garage of his home. Prosecutors say all three of the killings — Camille Love, Lucas-Alfonso and Zuniga — were committed by members of the same gang.
Mederos was one of seven people charged in the murder of Camille Love and the shooting of her brother. The last suspect in her death, Richard Sanchez, was charged in February. His case is still pending resolution. Others have already been convicted or pleaded guilty to Love’s murder.
Prosecutors alleged the group was searching for rival gang members in retaliation for another shooting when they saw the Loves’ car. It was red, the color used by the rival gang.
The Loves weren’t affiliated with a gang, police said. Camille Love was an aspiring veterinary technician.
Warrants were issued for the arrest of the suspected killers. While trying to hunt down Mederos, law enforcement learned he had fled to Mexico.
Mederos was added to the FBI’s “Ten Most Wanted Fugitives” list in 2017.
It wasn’t until June 2020, a decade after the fatal shooting of Love, that the FBI announced Mederos had been arrested in Tenancingo, Mexico and was brought to the United States.
