Teris Vinson booking photo
SACRAMENTO — A Sacramento man who had already been arrested on weapons charges and was in custody was charged on Monday, April 17, 2017, in the fatal shooting of a local woman.
Janet Mejia, 28, was found dead on Wednesday, April 12, 2017, in Placer County. She had been reported missing two days earlier.
Teris Vinson, 25, who lived with Mejia and another woman, had already been arrested on weapons charges on April 13, 2017, and remains in custody, said Tony Turnbull, a spokesman for the Sacramento County Sheriffs’ Department.
Mejia was first reported missing by her roommate on April 11. She had left her family’s home in Stockton on April 10 and did not show up for work. Detectives found her abandoned car in the Arden Arcade area of Sacramento on April 12. The next day, authorities found her body just off the roadway near Watt Avenue and Dyer Lane in Placer County.
When detectives initially interviewed Vinson following her disappearance, they discovered he owned firearms, which is illegal because Vinson is a convicted felon.
Mejia was a graduate from CSU Sacramento and had a degree in American Sign Language and Deaf Studies. She was working at Nordstrom in Roseville while looking for a job in her major field, said her friend Elvia Gutierrez, whom Mejia had grown up with in Stockton.
Court records show that Vinson pleaded no contest to felony domestic violence in 2012 and again in 2013, when he was sentenced to two years in state prison. In July 2012, he was arrested for domestic violence after causing visible injuries by grabbing his victim around the neck and throwing the victim onto a bed. He allegedly punched and slapped the victim in the face and refused to let her leave the bedroom or call police.
