A Solano County Superior Court jury on Thursday found a 52-year-old Fairfield man and former Napa restaurateur guilty of fatally stabbing his ex-wife in February 2017.
After nearly two days of deliberations, the jury pronounced its verdict in the first-degree murder case against Camden Lo at 1:30 p.m. in Judge E. Bradley Nelson’s courtroom in Fairfield.
Nelson scheduled Lo’s sentencing for 1:30 p.m. Nov. 4 in Department 4, where the eight-day trial, including jury selection, was held. Lo faces a possible state prison sentence of 25 years to life for the killing.
Deputy District Attorney Kevin Cunnane declined to comment about the verdict at press time Thursday.
But Lo’s defense attorney, Geoffrey Rotwein of San Francisco, said, “I was very surprised at the first-degree murder conviction. I expected a voluntary manslaughter conviction for events that occurred in the heat of passion of a quarrel.”
The verdict came after jurors last week viewed graphic photos and heard testimony from a Fairfield police crime scene investigator.
Shanel Rokhvarger told jurors details of her work while investigating the death of Wen-Ying Lo, 48, whom she found on the garage floor of the Fairfield home she once shared with Camden Lo.
Photo by photo, Rokhvarger noted four stab wounds in all, including two in the victim’s abdomen, each 2-inch vertical entry wounds, and another in the upper chest, which, during his opening statement at the trial’s outset, Cunnane called “the kill shot.” He also pointed out a 4-inch wound “right above the heart,” which severed the woman’s aorta, the human body’s main artery.
Rokhvarger acknowledged that she took the photos, as required by her job, and also took several more, including images of the victim, fully clothed, a red top over black slacks, lying on the garage floor of the Burgundy Way home.
She also noted that she attended the victim’s autopsy at the Solano County Coroner’s Office, where she was required to again photograph the victim and “collect any evidence.”
She testified that she collected DNA from the victim, including fingernail clippings from her hands and swabbed the victim’s hands with two separate DNA kits.
Throughout the trial Camden Lo appeared to be listening closely to testimony as it was translated by an interpreter into Cantonese, his primary language.
During their opening statements as formal trial proceedings got underway, Cunnane said the couple argued often and vigorously about money, while Rotwein described the victim as a “very violent person” who “brought the knife to the encounter.”
But jurors apparently accepted the prosecution’s argument that it was Camden Lo who used a kitchen knife to stab his ex-wife several times during the Feb. 10 attack, a killing that occurred just hours after the couple appeared for divorce settlement matters in front of a judge in Solano County Family Court in Fairfield.
Camden Lo was arrested at his Napa restaurant, the Mandarin Palace, co-owned with his ex-wife, a few hours after the attack and booked into Solano County Jail on suspicion of murder. He later pleaded not guilty to the charge.
At the outset of the trial, Cunnane said the couple’s divorce proceedings were prompted by money, with his labeling money as “the source of frustration, rage and hostility.” Cunnane asserted that Camden Lo believed his ex-wife “was hiding money” from him.
Rotwein countered by noting the Los, who moved to the Fairfield area about nine years ago, argued frequently but that Wen-Ying was the source of the violence.
He recalled son Stanley Lo’s testimony from the July 3, 2018, preliminary hearing, with the son agreeing his mother was a violent person but his father was not, recounting the time when his mother struck him with her open hand when they lived together in Los Angeles, and, at another time, struck him with a sword of some kind, bruising him. At another time, Wen-Ying was so angry, Rotwein told jurors, that she broke off the door knob of her son’s locked door and used it to strike him on the head.
Wen-Ying Lo was “a very violent, very aggressive, violent person,” Rotwein said, noting that the couple eventually filed for divorce.
