Throat Slasher Sentenced to 40 Years to Life in Prison

Updated 8 a.m. Thursday to reflect sentence is "40 years to life" not "life." Patch regrets the error.

A 19-year-old man was sentenced Wednesday to 40 years to life in prison with the possibility of parole for slashing a clerk's throat during a robbery at a Manhattan Beach cigar store last summer.

Torrance Superior Court Judge Mark Arnold -- who heard the case against Tyler Lee Rodgers after he waived his right to a jury trial -- found the Los Angeles resident guilty June 10 of one count each of attempted murder, kidnapping for robbery and robbery for the Aug. 16, 2012, attack on Naveed Mirza at The Cigar and Smoke Shop.

Rodgers went into the shop with one of his arms inside a box and then pulled out a shotgun after the clerk asked him why his arm was inside the box, according to Deputy District Attorney Ethan Milius.

Rodgers forced Mirza to the back of the store, handcuffed him, took money from the cash register and slashed the clerk's throat "from the left ear to the right ear." He also stabbed the victim and tried to strangle him with a wire in an attack that required the victim to undergo surgery and extensive physical therapy, Milius said.  

Some of the attack was caught on video surveillance cameras until Rodgers realized that he was being recorded and started tearing out the equipment, but the footage was recovered from a hard drive, according to the prosecutor. 

Rodgers also was convicted of residential burglary for breaking into a home in Torrance about two months earlier.

Rodgers -- who had a robbery conviction as a juvenile -- was arrested eight days after the attack on the clerk and has remained jailed since then.

During one court hearing, he reached behind himself and apparently ate his own feces, but two court-appointed doctors subsequently determined that he was mentally competent to stand trial.

Rodgers also reportedly rubbed feces on his face while in a courthouse lockup during the trial.

—City News Service