A 23-year-old man was sentenced Friday, Sept. 9, to 16 years to life in prison for fatally stabbing his girlfriend in his car in a restaurant parking lot in La Habra five years ago.

Jose Antonio Bojorquez-Romero had been convicted May 17 of second-degree murder in the killing of Selena Araiza, 19, of La Habra on April 28, 2017.

The victim sustained 65 “sharp force injuries” in the attack, Deputy District Attorney Casey Cunningham said.

The defendant “violently and callously stabbed Selena in the head, neck and chest until she was dead,” Cunningham wrote in a sentencing brief. “He committed this brutal act of violence because she broke up with him and because she had engaged in sexual relations with another man.”

The two were in a “toxic relationship,” but were “first loves,” said the defendant’s attorney, Vu Tran.

Tran argued that the defendant retrieved the knife to harm himself, not to attack the victim. He requested probation for his client.

“If he couldn’t have her, no one else would have her,” Cunningham said.

That evening the two got together in the parking lot of the Green Burrito, at 911 W. Whittier Blvd., “where they would spend their time” together often, Cunningham said.

Video surveillance caught much of the scene with the two getting together about midnight and then parting and then returning a multiple times through the night and into the morning.

Romero called her about 5 a.m. and asked her to return to the parking lot, where she left her car, just a few steps from where she lived, Cunningham said.

The stabbing took place about 6 a.m., and Romero called 911 about 6:10 a.m., Cunningham said. Romero had a knife wound to his own neck.

The defendant told the dispatcher, “There’s a guy with a knife running around,” Cunningham said.

Romero called 911 again five minutes later, the prosecutor said, and he told the dispatcher that the knife-wielding suspect was “fighting with somebody.”

As he waited for the police to arrive, he can be seen on the video “casually” flipping the knife a few times and “leaning into” the car to apparently kiss Araiza on the forehead, Cunningham said. When the officers arrived he refused to put the knife down as commanded, but the police subdued him with a stun gun and rubber bullets.

Romero told police under questioning that he considered killing himself that morning and that the defendant and victim “struggled” over the knife, Cunningham said. When she jumped on his lap to more forcefully attempt to take the knife away, he said, “I don’t know what hit me” and he repeatedly stabbed her.

His lawyer said Romero went home to get a knife and resolved to kill himself, but he called the victim because he wanted to see her one more time and say goodbye, Tran said. He wrote a suicide note before meeting with her, and then they talked for about 30 minutes and she grew concerned about the knife so she tried to take it from him.

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Ultimately, the two calmed down, but when he admitted his plan was to kill himself, she suddenly jumped on his lap and attempted to take the knife from him, and as they struggled over the weapon she got wounded and angrily said that if he was intent on suicide, she wished he would go ahead and do it so she could move on with her new boyfriend, Tran said.

“When he hears that, he snaps,” the lawyer said.

Romero attempted to stab himself in the neck a couple of times, wounding himself, but when that doesn’t work, he called 911 to “commit suicide by cop,” Tran said.