Sheila Marie Ritze, Second-Degree Murder, California 2019

In a gruesome case that shocked the nation, Grimy Times has uncovered the disturbing details of a murder that took place on a boat in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California.

Sheila Marie Ritze, a 42-year-old San Juan Capistrano woman, has been sentenced to 262 months in federal prison for her role in the murder of a man whose body was found floating in the ocean with bullet and blunt force trauma wounds.

According to prosecutors, Ritze went on a late-night lobster-fishing trip with Hoang Xuan Le, 41, a.k.a. “Wayne,” and “Wangsta,” of Fountain Valley, and the victim, who owed Le a debt. Ritze’s boat was docked at Dana Point Harbor.

During the trip, Le shot the victim on the boat, and Ritze and Le left him to die in the ocean, where he drowned. The victim’s body was recovered from the Pacific Ocean several miles northwest of Oceanside on October 16, 2019.

The San Diego County Medical Examiner’s Office determined that the victim was a homicide victim who drowned after being shot and suffering blunt force trauma.

Ritze was also found guilty of making false statements to federal investigators, who discovered that she had lied about never meeting the victim prior to the fatal boat trip. Ritze and the victim had been in Las Vegas together 11 days prior to the murder.

Prosecutors argued that Ritze’s crime has left a grieving mother, grieving widow, grieving brothers, a grieving sister, and two fatherless small children. Ritze continued on with her life after murdering the victim as though nothing had happened, continuing to party with Le and assisting Le with tracking the victim’s grieving widow with GPS trackers.

The Coast Guard Investigative Service and the FBI investigated this matter, and Assistant United States Attorneys Greg Scally and Gregory W. Staples of the Santa Ana Branch Office are prosecuting this case. Hoang Xuan Le, Ritze’s accomplice, faces a mandatory sentence of life in federal prison at his July 17 sentencing hearing.

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