Man who stabbed bride-to-be pleads guilty and is sentenced to life in prison

Omar Loera listens to friends and family of Cheree Osmanhodzic talk about Cheree after Loera pled guilty to the murder of the Valley Village woman. (Photo by David Crane/L.A. Daily News)

Apologizing for the senseless grief he caused, a 34-year-old transient was sentenced Tuesday to life in prison for murdering a Valley Village woman just two months before her wedding.

Omar Armando Loera spoke quietly during an emotional hearing in which he pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in the fatal stabbing of Cheree Osmanhodzic last July 24.

"I will pay in full," said Loera, who was shackled and wearing an orange inmate jumpsuit. "I will give my life, as we speak, if I could bring her back.

I'm sorry I put them through all of this because of me."

Loera agreed to plead guilty in a deal with prosecutors that spared him the possibility of a death sentence but made him ineligible for parole.

"You did away with a person as if she didn't count," Van Nuys Superior Court Judge Perrin Silvers said. "You destroyed any impact for good she was capable of giving."

In an apparently random crime, Loera broke into the Riverside Drive apartment Osmanhodzic shared with her fianc , Adam Culvey, intending to burglarize it for whatever he could get, officials said.

He surprised Osmanhodzic, who had just returned home from shopping for a wedding dress with her mother. He stabbed the young woman 20 times, set a fire to mask his crime, then fled, getting away with only her

driver's license.

Culvey was returning home from the supermarket and chased Loera, but failed to catch him. After scuffling with the attacker in an alley, Culvey returned home to find his home engulfed in flames.

Osmanhodzic's body was found when firefighters extinguished the blaze.

Using DNA evidence from an Apple iPod Shuffle found near the crime scene and witnesses' statements, authorities named Loera as a suspect. They launched a massive manhunt, and the City Council offered a $50,000 reward for information leading to him.

He was eventually tracked to Mexicali, Mexico, where he was arrested last October and extradited to the United States.

Coincidentally, both Osmanhodzic and Loera had the same birthdate of Dec. 10, 1975.

Osmanhodzic's fiance, parents and friends - some holding photos of the victim - attended Tuesday's hearing, where they had the opportunity to address Loera.

"(You) have ruined so many lives," said Osmanhodzic's father, Mike Cameron.

"There will be no grandchildren to spoil," said Osmanhodzic's mother, Gail Cameron, adding that she thinks about her daughter every day and wonders why Loera decided to kill her.

"Since that day my life hasn't been and will never be the same," she said.

Culvey didn't speak during he hearing, although his father, Don Culvey, said he has been proud of his son who has since taken a reconciliatory stance toward Loera.

"He told me, `I ended up praying for his salvation,"' the elder Culvey said. "`I ended up crying for him."'

Source: http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_18272525?source=rss

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