A convicted felon who fatally beat his 83-year-old grandmother during an argument at her Menifee home is facing 20 years to life in state prison for second-degree murder and elder abuse.
A jury convicted him after only a few hours of deliberations.
Andrew Daniel Joseph, 45, was found guilty on Monday, Nov, 18, of the murder count along with elder abuse for the 2020 death of Ethel Mae Hayes.
Riverside County Superior Court Judge Matthew Perantoni scheduled a sentencing hearing for Jan. 24 at the Riverside Hall of Justice. Joseph is being held without bail at the Byrd Detention Center in Murrieta.
On the afternoon of Sept. 18, 2020, Joseph was alone with his grandmother in her and her husband’s single-story home in the 26000 block of Ridgemoor Drive, near Menifee Road, when a verbal dispute erupted, according to a trial brief filed by the District Attorney’s Office.
Joseph confided to a cousin later that day that “Ethel had ‘spazzed out’ on him, and he, in response, ‘went off’ on her,” the brief says.
“The defendant did not describe exactly what he did to his grandmother,” court papers stated. “He claimed that he blacked out and could not remember what happened.”
Evidence collected at the scene indicated Joseph had slammed Hayes’ face and head into a cabinet and possibly a wall several times, according to the brief.
The gravely injured senior managed to walk to a neighbor’s house and ring the doorbell. The neighbor wasn’t home, but via front-porch camera spoke with Hayes, who had blood on her face and visible swelling around her eyes, the prosecution said.
“She said she had been assaulted by her grandson, ‘Andrew,’ repeating several times that her grandson had attacked her,” the brief recounted.
The victim collapsed unconscious on the porch, and the neighbor called 911. Hayes was taken to Riverside University Medical Center in Moreno Valley, where she succumbed two days later.
Joseph went to his sister’s house in Hemet, where Menifee police officers found him and arrested him the day of the assault.
Joseph had been welcomed into his grandparents’ house after being paroled from state prison, according to the prosecution. Court records show he has a prior conviction for assault with a deadly weapon resulting in great bodily injury. He served more than 10 years behind bars.
