Garcia to serve life in prison

Suzie Harrison

After eight years, the family of Simindokht Roshdieh finally knows

the fate of the man who killed the wife and mother.

Gilbert Garcia was sentenced Monday to life in prison. He was

convicted Dec. 3 of her murder, which had taken place during a Feb.

20, 1995, robbery of a Laguna Beach Baskin-Robbins.

Orange County Deputy Dist. Atty. Susan Schroeder said that the

prosecution respects the jury’s verdict, but it was disappointed that

the jury did not support the death penalty in this case.

“He will never get out of prison and do again such a brutal

crime,” Schroeder said. “There was no other reason than his greed

that killed an innocent woman and wounded a man defending his wife.”

She said that the brutal crime shook the hometown neighborhood.

“It’s something a lot of people remember the time it happened,”

Schroeder said. “It was a long time coming, and he is never going to

breath air outside of prison.”

Garcia was identified five years after the crime, when Laguna

Beach detectives Dan Lowrey and Bob Romaine used a database of gang

members’ tattoos to match his markings with those of the Tustin

Baskin-Robbins ice cream store’s robber. That crime was caught on

videotape. Garcia had robbed three other businesses before he came to

Laguna Beach.

Laguna Beach police interviewed Garcia at two maximum security

facilities before issuing a warrant for his arrest in December 2001.

He was brought to Laguna Beach from Pelican Bay State Prison in

Crescent City, where he was serving 25 years to life for a carjacking

in Torrance.

Simindokht Roshdieh’s husband, Firooz, was injured when he tried

to protect his 52-year-old wife from Garcia with a broomstick. He

never returned to the ice cream shop after the murder, and the family

sold the business a couple of years later.