Ex-con found guilty of murder of HD manager

A convicted rapist who shot and killed a Home Depot store manager in Southern California in 2007 was convicted of first degree murder April 28 in an Orange County courtroom, according to an Associated Press story. Jason Richardson, age 39, who committed the crime during the course of a robbery, is eligible for the death penalty.

Richardson entered a Home Depot store in the Tustin Market Place in February 2007 dressed in white painter’s coveralls, a yellow hard hat, a dust mask and gloves. When he tried to rob a safe and pointed a gun at a cashier, store manager Thomas Egan approached Richardson and pleaded with him not to hurt anyone. The robber shot Egan in the stomach. He then took $500 from cash registers and fled.

On his way out of the store, the gunman dropped a sock full of ammunition. Police were able to match the DNA from the sock to DNA records in a state database from Richardson’s previous convictions for rape and sexual assault on a child.

At the time of his death, Egan, age 40, left behind 3-year-old twin daughters.