[The Franchise]

Well....just in case anyone cares.....I'll show you a couple of the articles about the trial. I was on the second defendant's trial......the guy named Combs.

A Suisun City man arrested following the fatal 2008 shooting of young Fairfield City Councilman Matt Garcia was found guilty of murder Thursday in Solano County Superior Court.

After roughly 10 hours of deliberation, a 10-man, two-woman jury on Thursday afternoon found 46-year-old Gene Allen Combs guilty of second-degree murder for his role in the Garcia slaying.

Superior Court Judge Robert S. Bowers subsequently set 8:30 a.m. July 19 for judgment and sentencing in the matter. Combs faces a maximum sentence of 15 years to life in state prison.

In a separate trial last week, Combs' former co-defendant, 33-year-old Henry Don Williams of Fairfield, was found guilty of first-degree murder with personal use of a firearm in the councilman's Labor Day death. Believed to have been the triggerman, Williams faces a maximum sentence of 50 years to life in prison.

After the verdict was read, Garcia's mother, Teresa Courtemanche, said she felt that courts had fulfilled their mission.

"We continue to believe that the justice system works," she said. "We thank the jury for doing everything they had to do to reach their verdict."

Stepfather Ray Courtemanche said the slain councilman's family and friends would continue working to make Fairfield the kind of town Matt Garcia believed in.

"He embodied stepping up to the plate and it's important for us to be representative of the city we believe in, and that's Fairfield," Ray Courtemanche said. "Fairfield first, guaranteed."

Teresa Courtemanche said the young councilman's dream for his community would be fulfilled.

"We want to continue doing what Matt was doing -- supporting our youth, stopping crime and strengthening our community," she said.

The councilman's father, Matt Garcia Sr., said he, too, was gratified by the jury's verdict.

"I'm feeling really good about the decision. Justice has prevailed," he said. "I just hope we'll be able to get on with our lives again."

Testimony offered during the back-to-back murder trials of Williams and Combs indicated that Matt Garcia was, unwittingly, in the wrong place at the wrong time when the two defendants went hunting for a Cordelia drug dealer who cheated Combs in a $50 methamphetamine buy.

The pair were being driven down Silverado Drive in Cordelia by Williams' pregnant girlfriend, Nicole Stewart, the evening of Sept. 1, 2008, when Garcia drove past them in his Cadillac CTS. Williams apparently mistook Garcia's car for that of the neighborhood drug dealer. According to testimony, he told Stewart to stop, then climbed out of his car and began firing a semi-automatic .22-caliber pistol into the darkness.

At least eight shots were fired and one struck Garcia as he stood on the sidewalk talking to a friend. He later died in a Walnut Creek medical center.

Combs admitted telephoning the drug dealer after the shooting and stating, "The bullets down the street were meant for you."