WOODLAND — A Yolo County jury has convicted a Yuba City man of fatally shooting his estranged wife more than four years ago as she worked in an almond orchard.

Ignacio Favela Mendoza, 41, was found guilty Thursday of first-degree murder with enhancements for personal discharge of a firearm causing great bodily injury and murder in the commission of a kidnapping, the Yolo County District Attorney’s Office announced in a news release.

Mendoza faces a sentence of life without the possibility of parole at a Sept. 8 hearing.

He had been indicted by the Yolo County grand jury for the May 26, 2007, murder of Angel Guadalupe Benitez Ojeda at an almond orchard off County Roads 94 and 13 near the town of Zamora.

According to the transcript of an Oct. 23, 2010, grand jury proceeding that led to an indictment in the case, witnesses testified that they overheard Mendoza arguing with Ojeda that afternoon. At one point, a supervisor told Mendoza to leave.

He did, briefly — driving his vehicle back and forth on Road 94 for about 20 minutes before returning to the orchard and confronting Ojeda again. This time, he was armed with a shotgun, according to the transcript.

Josefat Percastre, who was working nearby, said he saw Mendoza point the gun at Ojeda — known as Lupe or Lupita to her fellow workers — and order her into his car.

“She said, ‘No, if you are going to kill me, kill me once and for all,’ ” Percastre testified under questioning by Deputy District Attorney Larry Eichele. “And then he shot her.”

Ojeda died at the scene. An autopsy showed that 16 buckshot pellets tore through her aorta, lungs and spine as a result of the close-range shot, sheriff’s Sgt. Dale Johnson told the grand jury.

Mendoza fled to Mexico after the shooting. He was arrested in April 2010, nearly three years later, and returned to the United States the following October.

— Reach Lauren Keene at [email protected] or (530) 747-8048. Follow her on Twitter @laurenkeene

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