39-year-old Coachella woman sentenced for murdering husband during argument

A 39-year-old woman who fatally shot her husband during a dispute at their Coachella home was sentenced today to 50 years to life in prison.

An Indio jury deliberated less than a day in June before finding Cindy Gicela Parra Hernandez guilty of first-degree murder for the 2022 slaying of Francisco Lopez. Jurors also convicted Hernandez of assault with a deadly weapon resulting in great bodily injury and spousal abuse.

Riverside County Court Superior Court Judge James Hawkins sentenced the defendant Friday to an indeterminate term 50 years to life for the murder count, which included an enhancement for discharging a firearm causing great bodily injury, according to Thalia Hayden of the Riverside County District Attorney's Office.   

Hernandez's great bodily injury and spousal abuse convictions carried additional sentences, adding up to as much as three years in state prison on top of the murder count, Hayden told City News Service.

There were conflicting accounts regarding what happened between the defendant and victim, whose relationship was plagued with dissension.   

On the day of the killing, Aug. 7, 2022, the victim -- who had only recently returned to living at home after moving out because of an extramarital affair -- and the defendant went to a store to purchase items for their business, and they argued intensely, according to the District Attorney's Office.

Sheriff's Detective Ricardo Ramirez testified in Hernandez's 2023 preliminary hearing that when he initially interviewed Hernandez, she said she was in the backyard making carnitas with her husband when he abruptly confronted her with a handgun that he kept in the bedroom. The defendant told the investigator she managed to grab the pistol, then put it back in a drawer.   

She then proceeded to detail different scenarios about what transpired as daybreak approached, Ramirez said, including one in which Lopez pulled the gun away from her after she initially took possession of it and shot himself in the head.

The second scenario was that the defendant maintained control of the firearm and leveled it at Lopez, who told her, "If you have balls, pull the trigger," at which point she shot him in the forehead, the detective said.   

"She said after she called 911, she went back to Francisco's body and placed the handgun ... underneath his hand,'' Ramirez testified.   

Deputies arrived at the couple's home in the 84-000 block of Fiesta Road shortly after 5 a.m. to investigate reports of a shooting and found Lopez dead from the head wound.

Hernandez was questioned at the scene and later at the sheriff's Thermal station, culminating in her arrest the same day.   

She had no documented prior felony convictions. However, according to the prosecution's trial brief, there had been assault allegations against her in 2022 after she struck her husband with a vehicle during a driveway squabble, causing him to roll completely over the car and land on his face.