PREVIOUSLY

###

Russell Albers was sentenced to at least 128 years to life in state prison today for the horrific 2022 murders of Daniel Garcia and Jennifer Paddock, a shooting in the Eureka area that orphaned their then four-year-old child and injured two women.

[CLARIFICATION: His final sentence will either be 128 years and four months or 136 years and four months. This will be determined next week, according to his attorney, due to laws surrounding sentencing for one of the firearm enhancements Albers admitted to. He described this question as “academic” as it doesn’t affect the man’s minimum eligible parole date.]

The sentence was handed to Albers after the court heard an onslaught of raw suffering from family members, who said the shooting shattered their family.

Humboldt County Superior Court Judge Kelly Neel told Albers it’s “unfathomable that you could choose to decimate a family, much less in front of a baby,” and called the plea deal he entered into an extension of mercy from the prosecution.

2022 booking photo.

“I believe you will likely die in prison” she said, adding he’s “earned every day” of the sentence.

In the deal, Albers waived his right to appeal, and his right to use the three years he’d spent in the Humboldt County Correctional facility as credit toward the sentence.

The packed, teary courtroom heard from family members of the victims, who told the judge that Albers took away a massive part of their family.

On Dec. 27, 2022, Russell Albers followed his former romantic partner — who had attempted to leave him after he became increasingly violent — to her sister’s home in Pine Hill, according to reporting on witness testimony from the Eureka Times-Standard.

He demanded he leave her sister’s home with him. He shot her, her sister, her sister’s partner and another woman who was staying at the home. The child of the victims was in the home during the shooting.

The four-year-old ran to get help from neighbors after seeing her father dead.

In a victim impact statement read by a victim witness, the now eight-year-old girl said, “I want to know why he killed my parents” and recounted seeing her dad’s open eyes, even after he had died.

She wrote she hoped Albers found God.

Her adoptive mother said the girl suffers from nightmares and sleepwalking, and witnessed something most could never imagine. She recounted a time where the child said “if Russel gets out of jail he will come and kill me.”

She noted a sense of guilt that her mother will never get to see her daughter play the piano, graduate kindergarten, and said the loss and trauma from the shooting will never go away.

Another family member told the court the girl used to say how much she loved Uncle Russel.

Between sobs, the former girlfriend described Albers as possessive, controlling, and abusive, and told her he’d kill her if she left him.

“He took my sister, she did nothing to him but try to protect me,” she said. 

She said she watched him kill the victims, and the only thing she could think about was that her niece was next.

“He destroyed so many lives, so many families. I will never get them back. I live with this every day of my life,” she said.

The family urged the judge to give him the longest possible sentence — some promised to show up in later decades to Elderly Parole Hearings to testify on the pain he caused.

Prosecutor Candace Myers described Albers’ actions of the caliber only seen in nightmares and horror movies.

During the hearing, Albers expressed remorse through a statement read aloud by his attorney, Deputy Public Defender David Nims.

Albers described the people he murdered as good friends, and said he thinks about what he’s done every day.

“I am so very truly sorry. I hate myself for what I’ve done,” he wrote. The table in front of the man held balled-up tissues as he heard the statements from victims.

Albers had entered into a deal with prosecution in April, pleading guilty to first-degree murder for Paddock, second-degree murder for Garcia, and two counts of second-degree attempted murder for the two women wounded by gunfire in the shooting.

In exchange, the prosecution withdrew 10 charges and an array of special allegations levied against him. He faced a maximum of 148 years to life in prison for this conviction.

Nims noted that Albers chose to plead guilty and accept life in prison, which spared people from reliving the events in a jury trial.

Neel called the plea deal well reasoned, pointing to Albers waiving his right to appeal, in response to one victim lamenting Albers would not be convicted from the other crimes he was initially charged with.

On Tuesday, a hearing is scheduled to tie up loose ends before he is transported to state custody, including a protective order against his former romantic partner if he is ever released on parole. Albers was ordered to pay court fines, fees and restitution.

Humboldt Domestic Violence Services’ 24/7 support line can be reached at (707) 443-6042