Man sentenced to life for killing girlfriend in Westlake car crash
A man was sentenced Feb. 23 to life in prison for forcing his girlfriend into his SUV and driving into oncoming traffic, killing her, according to the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office.
Jeffrey Minifie, a 43-year-old white man, was found guilty in November 2015 of second-degree murder in the death of his girlfriend, Lilian Janeth Pleitez Duarte, 36. He was also convicted of kidnapping and evading an officer causing great bodily injury.
Shortly after 8 a.m. on Feb. 16, 2012, Minifie forced Duarte, his girlfriend at the time and a mother of three children, into his GMC Yukon and drove away, prosecutors said.
He later saw an LAPD patrol car and veered into oncoming traffic as police followed, prosecutors said. His SUV collided head-on with another vehicle in the 2400 block of West 6th Street in Westlake, killing Duarte.
Contact the Homicide Report. Follow @jeromercampbell and @latimeshomicide on Twitter.
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