A Long Beach man was convicted Thursday of fatally stabbing a 23-year-old Cal State Northridge student in 2014 after he responded to the student’s Craigslist ad to sell his vehicle, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office said.
After deliberating for 15 minutes, a jury of nine women and three men found 29-year-old Agustin Rosendo Fernandez guilty of the first-degree murder of Abdullah Alkadi, a Saudi Arabia national. He was also found guilty of committing the murder during a robbery and a carjacking and that he personally used a deadly weapon, a knife, the district attorney’s office stated.
“Fernandez responded to Alkadi’s online ad to sell his Audi A5 convertible and the two met in Northridge on Sept. 17, 2014,” said Deputy District Attorney Cynthia Barnes with the Major Crimes Division who prosecuted the case. “Fernandez stabbed the engineering student to death that same day and disposed of his body near Palm Springs off the 10 Freeway.”
About a month later the student’s body was discovered.
“The victim’s car was later found parked at the defendant’s apartment on the 6800 block of Long Beach Boulevard,” officials stated.
The defendant faces life in prison without the possibility of parole. He is expected to be sentenced Aug. 12 in Department N of the San Fernando Branch of the Los Angeles County Superior Court.
The Los Angeles Police Department’s Robbery-Homicide Division investigated the case.
Thumbnail photo of victim Abdullah Alkadi.