Overview
- Judge Teresa Caffese sentenced Lisa Gonzales to 31 years to life in state prison for second‑degree murder on Monday after a monthlong trial that ended in April.
- Prosecutors presented an autopsy showing the victim, Margaret Mamer, died from multiple sharp‑force injuries to the face, head and chest.
- Investigators recovered Mamer’s dismembered body in a blue plastic container in the building’s basement and found blood spatter in Gonzales’s bathroom despite attempts to clean with bleach.
- A third roommate testified she heard prolonged sawing noises and smelled metal and bleach, and officers recovered a hacksaw under a sink that prosecutors tied to the dismemberment.
- The case grew from a 2018 missing‑person report and a tip from a concerned citizen into a multi‑year probe that prosecutors say ended with accountability for a violent, interpersonal dispute over housing.