California man gets life for killing 2, including father

SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) — A Southern California man who killed two people, including his father, after being told to stop drinking beer and get a job was sentenced Wednesday to life in prison, prosecutors said.

Luke William Ferguson, 31, was sentenced to life without chance of parole plus 84 years for the Oct. 12, 2107 shootings in Orange County that also wounded two people, according to a statement from the county district attorney’s office.

Prosecutors said Ferguson shot Douglas Ferguson, 59, twice with a handgun owned by his father without saying a word after the man came home from work. He also shot his father’s girlfriend, 51-year-old Lisa Cosenza, in the head and wounded two roommates, Todd Kuchar and Brandon Dufault, who both survived.

Dufault was blinded by flying glass after Ferguson kicked down a bathroom door and shot him several times as he was in the shower, prosecutors said.

Ferguson was captured in Inglewood after a police chase.

Ferguson had moved back into his father’s condominium in Aliso Viejo about six weeks before the killing.

Prosecutors argued that Ferguson wanted to kill everyone in the home because he was tired of being harassed about getting a job. Kuchar told the media that Ferguson had argued with his father over the issue a few days before the shooting.

Ferguson’s public defender, Chris McGibbons argued that in spite of the issue, everyone in the home had appeared to get along and he hadn’t shown any hint of violence before the attack.

”The only complaint would be Luke was eating all the food and drinking all the beer and he didn’t have a job,” he said.

Ferguson was convicted last month of first-degree murder and attempted murder, along with special circumstance allegations of multiple murders and sentencing enhancements for personally firing a gun and causing great bodily injury or death.