Man Sentenced in Wife’s Slaying

LANCASTER — A 39-year-old Lancaster man was sentenced to 29 years to life in state prison after he pleaded no contest to killing his wife outside of his restaurant last year, the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office said Thursday.

Ufracio “Frank” Gutierrez, 39, also pleaded no contest to one count of child endangerment in Antelope Superior Court.

Gutierrez’s three children were sitting in the car in May 1996 when Gutierrez got out, walked around to the passenger side and shot his estranged wife, Alma, 34, of Rosamond, several times outside Frankie’s Mexican restaurant on Sierra Highway.

Gutierrez, who had recently been released from jail for spousal battery, was shot in the shoulder by his own pistol when an employee at the restaurant tried to wrestle him to the ground. He regained control of the pistol and then took his three children--then ages 4, 5 and 12--into the restaurant and held off sheriff’s deputies for four hours before he surrendered.