Family demands justice 14 years after college student murdered in Lincoln Park

Fourteen years after a Grossmont College student was stabbed to death in Lincoln Park, the suspect has finally been arrested.

Sonny Carrillo, 20, was killed after dropping off a friend at an apartment complex on 47th Street near Castana Street.

“He was like a perfect little kid and even though he was 20, he looked younger," Connie Meza, Carrillo's mother, told NBC 7 on Monday. "I miss him a lot."

Meza keeps her son’s memory alive with photos of him everywhere in her home and the posters she hangs at Carrillo's grave on his birthday.

 “Very, very close. He was my best friend,” Meza said.

San Diego police say Carrillo was stabbed in the chest and killed on July 29, 2011, by jealous boyfriend Julio Mendez. Carrillo was a mechanic and hoped to join the Marines after he graduated from college.

“He was a really, really funny kid at the house, but around people, he was really shy, really quiet,” Meza said.

That fateful July night, Carrillo gave a woman a ride to an apartment complex so she could leave her child with the child's father.

His mother identifies the woman Carrillo was dropping off as Samantha. She was not a girlfriend, not someone he dated and not even someone he knew very well. They met only one time through a friend at church, according to Meza.

Witnesses say Samantha asked Carrillo to wait in the car, but she didn’t return. Instead, police say Mendez attacked him through the open driver’s side window.

For 14 long years, Mendez could not be found. His photo appeared on the original wanted poster.

“He’s been spotted in different places in Mexico, but they just couldn’t catch him,” Meza said.

Meza says she received a call for a U.S. Marshal last December informing her that Mendez was in custody. Mendez was returned to the U.S. and faces first-degree murder and battery. Meza attended the first court hearing.

“I can’t believe when I seen him in court. I was like speechless. I can’t believe he had the nerve to say not guilty,” Meza said.

When friends told her Mendez must be dead by now, she never believed it. A conviction would be a long-awaited reckoning but not the end of her suffering.

“I feel thankful for a lot of reasons, for a lot of things, but my heart is broken. It will always be broken,” Meza said.

Mendez remains in San Diego County jail without bond. His next scheduled court appearance is in August.