The California Supreme Court today rejected an appeal by a Virginia man convicted of luring an investor onto a sailboat out of Dana Point Harbor and throwing his body overboard.
The decision by the state's high court followed a September ruling by a three-justice panel of the Fourth District Court of Appeals, which affirmed Gary A. Shawkey's conviction for the February 2008 killing of 71-year-old Robert Vendrick.
Shawkey, 49, of Mechanicsville, Va., was sentenced in July 2011 to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Shawkey convinced Vendrick, a retired computer software specialist, to invest $1.2 million in a series of projects that all failed, according to trial testimony.
Shawkey killed Vendrick when the victim began to suspect he would never see a return on his investments, according to the trial prosecutor, Deputy District Attorney Ebrahim Baytieh.
Vendrick went to meet Shawkey at Dana Point Harbor on Feb. 16, 2008, and was never heard from again, Baytieh said.
--City News Service
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