California Woman Sentenced in Connection with Shooting Death of Teen After Halloween Party

A California woman was sentenced to 25 years to life for the fatal shooting of a teenager in October 2021.

Jessica Yesenia Quintanilla, 24, was found guilty of first-degree murder in the killing of 19-year-old Leilani Marie Beauchamp inside a Fairfield, Calif. home in November 2024, KSBW reported.

“Her siblings will now not know what their lives could have been without their big sister by their sides, and they are tremendously grieving her loss,” Beauchamp’s grandmother Lourdes Giovannini said before sentencing on Friday, Jan. 17, per the Vacaville Reporter. “Leilani was my first grandchild. I was in the delivery room when she took her first breath of life. The pain from her loss – it’s unspeakable.”

Quintanilla’s attorney, William Welch, tells PEOPLE that the mother of two is “devastated” about the sentence in Solano County Superior Court and is “hoping that the appeal will ultimately wind up in her favor and that she can get a new trial.”

Beauchamp, a college student, was last seen leaving a Halloween Party in Sacramento with Travis Air Force Base Airman Juan Parra-Peralta and another airman in the early morning of Oct. 30, 2021.

Prosecutors alleged Beauchamp was lying in bed with Parra-Peralta when Quintanilla, who had previously dated Parra-Peralta, shot her before 9 a.m. that same morning. Prosecutors alleged that Quintanilla was furious to see Beauchamp, who she asked Parra-Peralta “not to hang around with,” per the Vacaville Reporter.

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Quintanilla claimed she stopped by Parra-Peralta’s home to pick up her clothing after she broke up with Parra-Peralta the night before. She also stated the shooting was accidental, alleging the gun went off after Parra-Peralta confronted her in the bedroom.

“She described a struggle with her boyfriend that he pulled a gun on her as she was trying to exit the bedroom,” says Welch. “She was taking her belongings and about $5,000 that was hers. He pulled out a gun, tried to stop her, and in the struggle, the gun went off and a single shot penetrated the skull of Ms. Beauchamp resulting in death.”

According to testimony, Quintanilla allegedly threatened Parra-Peralta with her handgun and made him drive to Salinas where he dumped Beauchamp, whose remains were later found wrapped in a blanket down a hillside on Oct. 31, per the Reporter.

Parra-Peralta was granted immunity for his testimony, according to the Reporter.

Quintanilla’s older brother, Marco Antonio Quintanilla, was sentenced to four years for being an accessory after the fact, per the Vacaville Reporter.