REDWOOD CITY — A San Mateo man was sentenced to 10 years in prison for fleeing police in a car chase that began in Daly City and ended in a wreck that killed an 18-year-old woman he met earlier that day.
Adrian Dewitt Marcel Watson, now 21, was sentenced by San Mateo County Judge Mark McCannon at a hearing on Monday, where the judge called the case “one of the worst” he’s handled.
“Do I think 10 years is enough? Absolutely not,” McCannon said. “You knew what you were doing was wrong … It’s the thrill of the drive, the thrill of running from the police.”
“You took their daughter, their cousin, their sister,” McCannon added. “I just don’t like (the sentence), and that’s not a reason for me not to approve it.”
Watson was also ordered to pay a $10,000 fine and $52,530 in restitution to the family of Jennifer Bautista Amezcua, the woman killed in the collision.
The sentence came after a jury on May 16 found Watson guilty of felony vehicular manslaughter, but not of second-degree murder. Jurors also found him guilty of felony fleeing a police officer resulting in death, felony hit-and-run resulting in injury to another person, misdemeanor hit-and-run resulting in property damage and misdemeanor trespassing.
After the trial, which lasted two weeks, the jury also deadlocked 11-1 on a charge of misdemeanor resisting arrest and 8-4 on a hit-and-run enhancement on the vehicular manslaughter charge.
The deadlocked charge and enhancement were set for a retrial on July 15, but the prosecution and defense reached an agreement ahead of the trial, prosecutors said.
“It’s not what we thought he deserved for what he did to the victim, but in light of the hung jury, it was a middle ground resolution of the case,” said San Mateo County District Attorney Stephen Wagstaffe. “That’s the maximum on the charges he was convicted of.”
Wagstaffe added that his office was “very disappointed” with the jury’s decision to find Watson guilty of manslaughter instead of murder.
“We felt the evidence was there to support the murder conviction, and it was just, you know, every jury is different,” Wagstaffe added. “We felt strongly that in killing this victim, that it should have been labeled murder, not manslaughter.”
Lauren Potter, Watson’s defense attorney, said in an interview after the hearing that the sentence was fair and said that she agreed with the jury’s verdict.
“I conceded in this trial that this was a vehicular manslaughter and that Mr. Watson was engaged in the conduct that ultimately was responsible for Jennifer Bautista (Amezcua)’s … death, which is very sad,” Potter said. “It’s a huge tragedy all the way around, but what we were fighting for was that this was just not a case in which Mr. Watson should be sentenced potentially for the rest of his life in prison.”
Potter emphasized that Watson had recently turned 18 at the time of the collision and that he had “significant trauma” regarding police, including being handcuffed by a police officer when he was a middle school student because the officer “didn’t like the way (he) spoke to him.” She added that Watson wrote a letter to the victim’s family in which he said there are times when he “truly wished it was him instead of Miss Bautista who had passed away.”
“He is not a person who does not care, or does not feel for this family,” Potter said. “He just was, at the end of the day, a very troubled young man who was making bad decisions.”
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On Jan. 6, 2023, Watson was stopped by a police officer at 1:45 a.m. for expired registration, prosecutors said. In his passenger seat was Bautista Amezcua, whom he had met earlier that evening.
Part way through the traffic stop, Watson accelerated away from the officer, resulting in a “lengthy” police chase through Daly City, prosecutors said. As he fled police, Watson allegedly hit speeds of over 80 mph and ran stop signs and stoplights.
He then got onto Interstate 280 and drove in the wrong direction, prompting police to stop the pursuit due to safety concerns, prosecutors said.
While on Interstate 280, Watson struck another car head-on, killing Bautista Amezcua. The driver of the vehicle Watson struck suffered a fractured spine, prosecutors added.
At Monday’s sentencing, Judge McCannon said he hopes that he never sees Watson “again under these circumstances.”
“I think this is tragic for everyone,” the judge said.