Man gets 3-year sentence for voluntary manslaughter in Santa Ana case from 1984

SANTA ANA — A 63-year-old man was sentenced Wednesday to three years behind bars for fatally stabbing a homeless man in Santa Ana in 1984.

John William Zelinski pleaded guilty Oct. 10 to voluntary manslaughter. With credit for time served awaiting trial he will get out of jail in a week, said Senior Deputy District Attorney Matt Murphy, who offered the defendant a plea deal that dropped a murder charge and a sentencing enhancement for the use of a deadly weapon.

“We thought this was the best disposition for the victims and his family and the community,” Murphy said last month of the plea bargain.

Zelinski killed Roy Thomas Emming on May 18, 1984, in the 2000 block of Walnut Street. He was extradited last year from Arizona.

Zelinski stabbed the victim in the back while the men were behind a county office building and then ran away, prosecutors said.