A Ventura man has been sentenced to a 12-year prison term for the fatal stabbing of his father with a pair of scissors, prosecutors announced yesterday. Jason Tyler Fernandes, 25, expressed his guilt by pleading guilty to voluntary manslaughter before the sentencing on March 18, 2024, acknowledging the violent nature of the crime and the vulnerability of the victim, his father Michael Fernandes.
The violent altercation unfolded on March 9, 2023, at a senior living facility in Moorpark, where Jason Fernandes forced his way into his father's apartment following heated exchange witnesses observed the younger Fernandes hit his father, and he subsequently left the residence covered in blood, his father was later found by neighbors, suffering from a fatal scissor wound to the abdomen, with pronounced death at a local hospital due to the stab wound and extensive lacerations to his head and face, according to the Ventura County District Attorney's Office.
Fernandes was apprehended shortly after the incident in a nearby river bottom by the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office. He faced a sentence for voluntary manslaughter and admitted to several special allegations, such as using a deadly weapon, committing an act of great violence, taking advantage of a position of trust, and exploiting the victim's vulnerability.
In a statement, Supervising Senior Deputy District Attorney Rafael Orellana reflected on the gravity of the case he said "The conviction and sentence in this case demonstrate the defendant’s remorse and willingness to accept responsibility for this senseless killing," adding "The victim’s death was an avoidable tragedy, and one for which today’s sentencing provides some measure of justice." The repercussions of this family tragedy navigated through a legal reckoning, leaving a ripple of enduring anguish in its wake, resonating not just with those immediately involved, but with the larger webs of community and kinship rending under the weight of such loss.
