Man Sentenced to 46 Years to Life for Park Murder

A man was sentenced Friday to 46 years to life in state prison for fatally shooting a man at a Huntington Beach park after stabbing another man in Newport Beach, the Orange County district attorney's office reported.

Derek Christopher Adams, 24, of Huntington Beach, was found guilty by a jury on Aug. 22 on one felony count each of second degree murder, grand theft, first degree residential burglary and aggravated assault. He received sentencing enhancements for the personal discharge of a firearm causing great bodily injury and death and the personal use of a firearm.

Adams' friend 21-year-old Marissa Star Bilotti, also of Huntington Beach, is charged with one felony count each of murder, aggravated assault, and first degree residential burglary with sentencing enhancements for being armed with a firearm and knowingly being vicariously armed with a firearm. If convicted, she faces a maximum sentence of 35 years and four months to life in state prison.

According to the D.A.'s office, in October 2010 Adams and Bilotti went to the Newport Beach home of Cody Masher, who was dating a woman whom Adams was also romantically interested in. Prosecutors says Mosher’s girlfriend got into a verbal argument with the pair and Adams went into the kitchen and got a knife which he used to stab Mosher.

Before fleeing the house, Adams and Bilotti took Mosher's cell phone and money from his girlfriend's purse.

Adams texted Mosher's girlfriend with the phone throughout the day, and later met her at Murdy Park in Huntington Beach to return the phone.

When Bilotti and Adams got to the park, Mosher's girlfriend was there with her friend Gregory Heintz and another friend. Prosecutors says when Heintz got out of the car, Adams shot him in the stomach. Heintz died shortly after at a local hospital.

At Friday's sentencing, Ken Heintz spoke about his son, Gregory, saying he was "innocent and unsuspecting."

"Greg never stood a chance against the pent up anger and unwarranted aggression of the criminal monster that Derek Adams became that day,” Ken Heintz said.