Woman sets up Pasco sex date leading to deadly ambush

A Spokane woman admitted Thursday that she set up a young father to be ambushed and killed by her husband and his cousin.

Mary A. Faucett befriended the victim after following him to a convenience store in December 2014, then called him hours later under the guise of a sexual hookup.

Lorenzo “Richie” Fernandez Jr. drove to the meeting spot — the Stonegate Apartments on Road 68 — and waited in his car for Faucett. She never showed.

Instead, her husband Kenyatta K.E. Bridges and Deshawn I. Anderson parked outside the complex, hopped a fence and surprised Fernandez, firing eight shots into his car.

Fernandez tried to get away from his attackers, hitting the gas pedal of his Ford Mustang and leaving a 20-foot burn pattern. The Ford hit two cars and a truck.

Paramedics tried to save Fernandez, but he died in the lot.

Nearly three years later and after five changes to the original charges, Faucett pleaded guilty Thursday to first-degree manslaughter.

She cried in front of Judge Cameron Mitchell, and got a side hug from her attorney John Crowley at one point.

The 28-year-old mother of two had been set for trial later this month in Franklin County Superior Court for conspiracy, first-degree rendering criminal assistance and making false or misleading statements.

She’s been in the Franklin County jail on $150,000 bail since May 2015.

Both Anderson and Bridges already are doing their time in Walla Walla’s Washington State Penitentiary.

Anderson, now 21, was sentenced last August to 93 years and 10 months. The shooter was convicted by a jury of murder, assault and gun possession.

Bridges, 28, got 10 years and five months in January after pleading guilty to the same charge as his wife.

However, Deputy Prosecutor Maureen Astley said Faucett will serve five more months than her husband because if it weren’t for her, Fernandez might still be alive.

“She was extremely culpable in setting in motion the events that would lead to Richie’s death, because she was the one that made the call and got the phone number,” Astley told the Herald after Thursday’s hearing.

The standard range for Faucett is seven years and two months to nine years and six months.

Faucett and Crowley agreed to a recommended a higher sentence of 10 years, 10 months. A sentencing date is not set.

Fernandez’s death was part of a series of escalating attacks starting in November 2014, when Anderson and another man fired 21 shots at a car parked with four men inside. Three were seriously injured.

The next night, a car with Anderson’s friend Anthony Guerrero, Anderson’s cousin and a third man was riddled with gunfire. Guerrero died hours later from his wounds. No one was charged.

Anderson, distraught by his friend’s death, went looking for any member of that street gang to retaliate for the shooting of his friend and his cousin.

Fernandez, the father of a young daughter, was picked because he was an associate of the victims of the Nov. 18 shooting.

This story was originally published August 17, 2017 at 6:20 PM with the headline "Woman sets up Pasco sex date leading to deadly ambush."