Brian Barajas crossed himself and sat down at the prosecution table in Superior Court in Riverside, showing the judge a photo of his only son and a card with a thumbprint obtained as Anthony Barajas lay mortally wounded on a hospital bed.
The father looked down to the defense table where Joseph Jimenez Jr. returned the gaze, and talked about Jimenez’s choices.
The choice to buy a gun, Jimenez previously testified, to protect himself against the threats made by the schizophrenia-induced voices in his head. The choice to stop taking his medication. The choice to bring the gun to a Corona movie theater on July 26, 2021, and retrieve it from his car before the film ended.
“To lie in wait and shoot two innocent people in the back of the head because you wanted to rob them,” Barajas continued. “Any of those choices could have changed the outcome. You stole the lives of two young people.”
Those choices culminated on Monday, Feb. 26, with Judge Timothy J. Hollenhorst sentencing Jimenez, 23, to life in state prison without the possibility of parole for the slayings of Corona residents Rylee Goodrich, 18, and her date, Anthony Barajas, 19, a graduate of Mater Dei High in Santa Ana.
Jimenez was also sentenced to 100 years to life — 25 to life for each murder, and 25 to life for using a firearm in the commission of a felony. District Attorney Mike Hestrin did not seek the death penalty.
Jimenez offered a brief apology.
“I’m sorry and I wish I never did what I did. My condolences. If things had been different, I would have made different choices,” he said.
A mourner visits a memorial for Anthony Barajas, left, and Rylee Goodrich, right, during a vigil at the Regal Edwards movie theater in Corona on July 31, 2021. Their attacker, Joseph Jimenez Jr., was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole on Feb. 26, 2024, for murdering them. (Brian Rokos, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)
Hollenhorst expressed sympathy to Jimenez’s family and friends in attendance but none for the defendant.
“Mr. Jimenez, from what this court has learned about your mental illness, it appears you are incapable of feeling remorse, so I don’t intend to lecture you on how devastating your actions were,” Hollenhorst said. “However, there is no question in this court’s mind that you know what you did was wrong. The court hopes that deep down in the depths of your soul, you will feel some sense of sorrow for taking the lives of two innocent victims.”
Goodrich’s parents, David and Danielle, were not in the overflow gallery of about 80 people.
“Their hearts are broken beyond repair,” said Jody Goodrich, Rylee’s grandmother. “Rylee’s mom and dad aren’t here today because Rylee’s memory is not here. Her memory is in a place of peace, comfort and beauty.”
Skylar Schueller, who described herself as Rylee’s best friend, said she could not find the words to describe the “devastation and trauma” Jimenez caused.
“Rylee is kind, the kind you don’t see in the world anymore,” she said. “The ‘Have you eaten today?’ kind. Rylee would have been his friend. Rylee would have seen him sitting alone that night and … felt sorry for him. It takes a certain kind of evil to remove someone like her from the earth for no reason.”
Barajas’ mother, Catherine, also exchanged long looks with Jimenez. She said the family, which also includes two daughters, had just returned from Hawaii, where the parents for the first time vacationed with the children as young adults.
“To the offender, we had to sit through the trial and hear about … how much you loved your mother and how special your relationship was with her and how sad you were when she died. While that may all be true, you had no regard for what your actions would do to my relationship with my son. My son and Rylee were taken because you made a choice,” Catherine Barajas said.
The teens were together at the Regal Edwards Cinema at the Crossings at Corona as the credits rolled on the last showing that night of “The Forever Purge.” Goodrich, who graduated from Corona High, perished in the theater and Barajas, who had hundreds of thousands of followers on his TikTok account, died on July 31 after donating organs.
Jimenez testified in his defense and said he graduated from Santiago High in Corona and was off of his medication that day when he heard voices from “Abigail” and an unidentified, equally non-existent companion saying he was in danger from the teens, as they sat several rows in front of Jimenez and three of his friends.
The six people were the only customers in the theater.
“The voices said my friends and family were going to be killed,” Jimenez said in a jailhouse interview with a Southern California News Group reporter in 2021.
Jimenez said then that he had been haunted by the voices for about eight months. Jimenez said he was diagnosed with schizophrenia about eight months before the shooting and had been taking medication. But he ran out, Jimenez said, and did not get more pills.
Inside the theater, Jimenez left during the movie and retrieved a bag containing a gun that he said he purchased on OfferUp. The three friends, unnerved by Jimenez, left the theater and did not warn anyone. They were not charged with any crime.
Corona police later linked Jimenez to the shooting by the credit card used by one of the friends to purchase the tickets.
Jimenez pleaded not guilty and not guilty by reason of insanity. He later withdrew those pleas and asked for a trial by judge to determine whether he was insane — which would have sent him to a mental health facility — when he killed the teens. But Hollenhorst ruled that he was sane.
Defense attorney Charles Kenyon argued that Jimenez was so overcome by his mental deficiencies that the moral implications of the shootings escaped him.
Senior Deputy District Attorney Kevin Beecham told Hollenhorst that Jimenez’s actions showed there was no moral dilemma as his testimony had suggested. After the shooting, Jimenez experienced a “consciousness of guilt” after he stole Goodrich’s wallet, running to his car and blowing stop signs to make his getaway, Beecham said.
Hollenhorst, in his sanity ruling, noted Jimenez’s normal interactions with others before the shooting such as asking a cinema concession worker for her phone number.
On Monday, Hollenhorst was emotional as he noted that his father and mentor, Tom E. Hollenhorst, 77, a judge in California for four decades, died in January. He drew a connection to this case.
“Children are supposed to bury their parents and mourn them. When children die before their parents, their circle of life is broken and the parents spend the rest of their lives picking up the pieces and trying to mend their own broken hearts,” Hollenhorst said.