Man Who Dumped Body off Bay Bridge Gets 102 Years

A 27-year-old gang member was sentenced today to nearly 102 years to life in prison for murdering a woman whose body he tried to dump into the ocean in Newport Beach and shooting another woman, who survived, on the same day.

Irwin Tellez was convicted Sept. 29 of first-degree murder, attempted murder, assault with a semi-automatic weapon and street terrorism charges, and jurors also found true sentencing enhancements for the use of a firearm, inflicting great bodily harm and committing the crimes to benefit a gang.

Tellez killed 28-year-old Nancy Hammour of Santa Ana on Sept. 2, 2013. He shot another victim -- a 31-year-old woman in Santa Ana who survived -- just before he opened fire on Hammour, according to Senior Deputy District Attorney Jim Mendelson.

Hammour’s sister, Yara Morales, told Orange County Superior Court Judge John Conley that the victim “had a heart that was full of love ... She made sure she called me every Sunday to check in or she knew I would find her.”

Hammour cared for Morales when she sustained second-degree burns on her legs, and when her mother broke her ankle, Morales said.

“She was there to take care of my children and home while I was in the hospital,” Morales said.

Hammour was also known for her sense of humor and ability to make others laugh “so hard that people would beg her to stop,” Morales said.

Their father’s death led Hammour “down the wrong path,” Morales said.

Hammour’s family has been unable to afford a plaque for her grave, which is next to her father’s, said Morales, who is caring for the victim’s two young sons.

“Do you know what it is like to have Nancy’s oldest son text me or call me in the middle of the night crying, missing his mom, asking me, ‘Why her, why did she have to leave me?”, Morales said.

Morales read a Facebook post from the victim’s son that described his grief.

“I don’t know how I’m going to explain it to my baby brother,” Hammour’s son wrote. “But I still have the bear my mom gave me when I was 3. I try to sleep with it every night because that’s the only thing that feels like a hug from my mom.”

Co-defendant Jaime Prieto Rocha, who testified in Tellez’s trial, was sentenced Oct. 30 to 16 years in prison. Rocha, 42, pleaded guilty Sept. 4 to voluntary manslaughter.

Rocha was driving when Tellez shot the 31-year-old woman in the street in Santa Ana -- the same day Hammour’s body was later found -- because she signaled an allegiance to a rival gang, Mendelson said.

Hammour, who was in the car with the two men when the other woman was shot, got “hysterical,” so Tellez shot her, as well, the prosecutor said.

Rocha took the rental car in which Hammour was killed to Mexico, where he got into an accident, prompting him to return to the U.S. to get another vehicle, Mendelson said.

When police traced a license plate to the rental car company, employees told detectives Rocha was with a car that was broken down in Oceanside, where the defendant was arrested, Mendelson said.

Hammour was a drug dealer who was indicted by a federal grand jury in a massive local, state and federal crackdown on Mexican Mafia gangs in Orange County dubbed “Operation Smokin’ Aces.”

Her body was found under the Bay Bridge in Newport Beach on Labor Day in 2013.

City News Service