A Costa Mesa resident was sentenced Friday to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the kidnapping and killing two decades ago of a man he believed had raped his former girlfriend.
Gianni Anthony Van, 45, was convicted of first-degree murder in the cold case in May.
For almost 20 years, Orange County law enforcement had been trying to definitively tie Van to the killing of 24-year-old Gonzalo Ramirez, who was found bloodied and blindfolded in the mud along an Irvine road in 1995.
Earlier this year, prosecutors presented testimony that Van helped kidnap Ramirez and hack him to death with a meat cleaver as he hung from chains in a Costa Mesa auto shop.