Man sentenced to prison in El Cajon-area double killing

A man convicted of gunning down a man and his teenage nephew in an unincorporated area near El Cajon more than two decades ago was sentenced Tuesday to multiple terms of life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Michael James Romero, 49, was found guilty by an El Cajon Superior Court jury of the Jan. 21, 2003, murders of 30-year-old Patrick Greene and 17-year-old Brandon Vigil.

Both victims were found dead just before 6 a.m. that day on Willow Glen Drive, according to the San Diego County Sheriff’s Office.

The case initially went cold, but Romero was arrested in 2022 after a friend of his — who was facing a potential prison sentence in an unrelated case — secured a recorded conversation, in which Romero admitted to committing the killings.

Romero, however, testified during the trial that his admissions were false and that the killings were actually committed by another man, who died about a decade after the slayings.

On Tuesday, Romero received a life without parole term for each killing, plus an additional 50 years in prison.