Man whose self-defense claim worked the first time he killed someone wasn't so successful when he tried it again

An Arizona antheral who gunned down his roommate astatine a radical location volition walk the adjacent 2 decades successful prison.

Michael Lanunziata, 38, was recovered blameworthy by a assemblage of second-degree execution and sentenced connected Monday to 20 years successful prison. In a property merchandise from the Maricopa County Attorney's Office, Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell said Lanunziata fatally changeable Joseph Lephiew, with whom helium lived astatine a transitional surviving situation alongside 5 different men. On Jan. 25, 2024, constabulary responded to the location successful Phoenix, Arizona, aft receiving a study astir a shooting.

When officers arrived, Lanunziata jumped retired a model and went to the roof.

Mitchell said Lanunziata spoke with archetypal responders from the extortion portion officers went inside, wherever they recovered Lephiew dormant of aggregate gunshot wounds. He was lying connected the staircase, wherever constabulary recovered Lanunziata's handgun and respective ammunition casings. Other residents told constabulary that they heard the 2 men arguing earlier the gunshots.

Lanunziata initially claimed that helium changeable Lephiew, who was unarmed, successful self-defense, telling constabulary that Lephiew "came astatine him." His stories became inconsistent, and Mitchell said Lanunziata "manufactured a world to acceptable his claim." She said grounds astatine the country proved that Lephiew's sidesplitting was not a lawsuit of self-defense.

Mitchell said Lephiew's execution "was a deadly and unjustified enactment of unit wrong a spot wherever radical should person felt safe."

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According to reporting by Phoenix-based vigor presumption KTAR, this was not the archetypal time Lanunziata claimed self-defense pursuing a deadly shooting. In a sentencing memo obtained by KTAR, prosecutors wrote that Lanunziata said helium was defending himself erstwhile helium changeable and killed another housemate, Lamar Reid Jr., successful Henderson, Nevada, successful 2016. Prosecutors yet dropped the charges against Lanunziata.