A state appeals court in San Francisco has upheld the murder conviction 
and life sentence of a Morgan Hill ranch owner who was convicted of the 
1998 shotgun slaying of a neighbor. 

Roy Lopez Garcia was convicted in Santa Clara County Superior Court in 
2000 of the first-degree murder of neighbor Debbie Gregg with the special 
circumstance of lying in wait to carry out the murder. 

Garcia, a prosperous carpet business and real estate owner, bought the 
Sleepy Valley Ranch in a rural section of Morgan Hill in May 1998, intending 
to raise cattle on the ranch. 

Soon after, Garcia and neighbor Debbie Gregg, a social worker who lived in a 
trailer in an adjacent lot, engaged in an escalating dispute about the 
boundary line between their properties. 

Gregg's body, with 60 shotgun pellet wounds, was found in November 1998 near 
the fence dividing the two properties. 

Garcia, who maintained he was innocent of the murder, appealed his conviction 
with a series of claims that his trial was unfair. 

In a ruling issued on Tuesday, a panel of the state Court of Appeal upheld 
the conviction by a 2-1 vote.

San Francisco Chronicle
4 March 2004