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Mom Of Murdered Pendleton Marine Testifies During Penalty Phase (Video)

Quiana Jenkins-Pietrzak and Sgt. Jan Pietrzak
courtesy photo
Quiana Jenkins-Pietrzak and Sgt. Jan Pietrzak

The mother of murdered Camp Pendleton Marine Sgt. Jan Pietrzak gave her victim impact statement Monday during the penalty phase of the trial against the three Camp Pendleton Marines who killed her son and his wife in 2008.

The Press-Enterprise reports Henryka Varga wept openly as she testified about the kind of man her son was.

Varga explained how her family moved to the United States from Poland when Pietrzak was a teenager. The events of 9/11 inspired Pietrzak to enlist in the Marines:

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“[He was the] American dream in action.”

Varga said the last time she saw her son was on his wedding day, just two months before his murder:

“Everything he wanted in life was coming together.”

Last week, two separate Riverside County juries found ex-Camp Pendleton Marines Kevin Cox, 25, Tyrone Miller, 25, and Emrys John, 22, guilty of first-degree murder in the brutal killings of Pietrzak and his wife, Quiana Jenkins-Pietrzak.

For more background on the crime itself, take a look at this report from Los Angeles television station KABC-TV: