Killer of woman dumped in Newport is sentenced to 102 years

A 27-year-old gang member from Garden Grove was sentenced to nearly 102 years to life in prison Friday for three shootings, including the murder of a mother of two whose body was dumped in Newport Beach.

Irvin Tellez shot and killed 28-year-old Nancy Hammour while they rode in a car early in the morning on Labor Day 2013, according to prosecutors.

With help from the car’s driver, Tellez threw Hammour’s body off a bridge spanning Newport Harbor, where it was found later that day.

As Orange County Superior Court Judge John Conley handed down Tellez’s sentence Friday, Hammour’s sister Yara Morales read a statement reminding Tellez that he had stolen a mother from two young boys.

“Do you know what it is like to have Nancy’s oldest son text me or call me in the middle of the night crying, missing his mom, asking me, ‘Why her? Why did she have to leave me?’” Morales said through tears.

According to prosecutors, Tellez and another gang member, Jaime Rocha, were with Hammour in her apartment smoking methamphetamine before the violence began.

The three soon left in a rented car driven by Rocha. While on a Santa Ana street, Tellez spoke to a woman through the car window.

When the woman mentioned a rival gang, Tellez shot her in the face. That woman “miraculously survived,” Conley said at the sentencing.

On the 55 Freeway, Tellez turned the gun on Hammour because she had begun yelling at him because of what he had done, Senior Deputy District Attorney Jim Mendelson said during the trial.

In September, a jury convicted Tellez of first-degree murder, attempted murder and street terrorism. Jurors also found him guilty of assault with a semiautomatic firearm for an earlier incident when he shot a man in a leg.

Rocha pleaded guilty to his part in Hammour’s killing and was sentenced last month to 16 years in prison. As part of a deal with prosecutors, he testified against Tellez.

In court Friday, Morales said Hammour had wandered down a dark path after their father died, but when Hammour’s second son was born, she vowed to turn her life around.

That was four months before the shooting.

The two boys are now being raised by relatives, according to Morales, who ended her statement in court by reading a Facebook post written by Hammour’s older son, who is now 16.

“I can’t stop crying. I miss you, Mom,” he wrote.

“I don’t know how I’m going to explain it to my baby brother,” the post concluded. “But I still have the bear my mom gave me when I was 3. I try to sleep with it every night, because that’s the only thing that feels like a hug from my mom.”