GUILTY CA - Stephen Rudiger, 43, found murdered, Castro Valley, 28 Dec 1990

Cheryl Ann Drace, 61, entered her plea in late April just before her trial was slated to begin in Alameda County Superior Court and will be sentenced by Judge Allan Hymer on July 14, according to prosecutors.

Authorities said Drace and William DeVincenzi, now 53, got married in Reno one day after they fatally stabbed Drace's ex-husband, 43-year-old Stephen Rudiger, near Chabot Regional Park in Castro Valley on Dec. 27, 1990.

DeVincenzi pleaded guilty to second-degree murder last year and also is scheduled to be sentenced on July 14.

Drace and DeVincenzi are both expected to be sentenced to 15 years to life in state prison.

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A San Leandro nurse and her former lover were sentenced Friday to 15 years to life in state prison for the 1990 murder of her ex-husband in unincorporated Alameda County.

Cheryl Ann Drace, 61, and William DeVincenzi, 53, stabbed and beat Stephen Rudiger near Chabot Regional Park in Castro Valley on Dec. 27 of that year.

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“You manipulated people and lied and are nothing but a gold-digging murderer,” Tami Borgia, 47, one of Rudiger’s three children from a previous marriage, told Drace at the sentencing. “You are evil.”

At the sentencing, Alameda County Superior Court Judge Allan Hymer told Drace, who cried but said nothing, she could have faced a harsher sentence had she not entered into a plea bargain. “A jury might well have imposed the death penalty,” Hymer said.

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