Husband gets 16 years to life in wife’s fatal stabbing

A Huntington Beach man was sentenced Friday to 16 years to life in state prison for murdering his estranged wife.

Fidelio Marin, 40, was convicted March 30 of stabbing Felix Mendez, 32, in a Huntington Beach motel room and leaving her body, which the couple’s 17-year-old daughter later found.

Marin was found guilty of felony second-degree murder with a sentencing enhancement for the personal use of a deadly weapon, according to the Orange County district attorney’s office.

Marin called Mendez on the afternoon of Oct. 10, 2008, and asked her to meet him at the Starlight Inn, 18382 Beach Blvd., where he had been staying after Mendez told him she wanted a divorce, according to the district attorney.

Mendez and her daughter went to meet Marin in his motel room, where he stabbed his wife repeatedly in the neck after their daughter left. The daughter returned to the motel about 4 p.m. after trying unsuccessfully to reach her parents by phone and found her mother’s body on the bathroom floor.

Marin was arrested three hours later on an Orange County Transportation Authority bus.

— Michael Miller