The Spring Valley killing began as a report of a woman calling for help and ended with a murder conviction.
SPRING VALLEY, Calif. — Deputies responding to a woman’s call for help found Ericka J. Wilson dying in a parking lot in January 2022, beginning a homicide case that ended with her estranged husband sentenced to life without parole.
The case against Kandynn Wilson, 34, moved from a late-night emergency call to a December murder verdict and a May 27 sentence of life without parole plus one year. Prosecutors said Wilson drove from Oakland to San Diego County, waited for Ericka Wilson after work and attacked her outside her apartment. The jury convicted him of first-degree murder and found that he was lying in wait when he killed the 29-year-old mother of his child.
The first public account came from the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department the day after the attack. Deputies said they were sent at about 11:55 p.m. Jan. 27, 2022, to an apartment complex in the 1600 block of Canyon Drive after a report that a woman was calling for help. They found Ericka Wilson unresponsive in the parking lot with obvious traumatic injuries. Deputies and firefighters tried lifesaving measures, but she died at the scene. The Sheriff’s Homicide Unit responded and assumed the investigation.
Within hours, investigators identified Kandynn Wilson as the suspect. He was found a few blocks from the complex and booked into the San Diego Central Jail on a murder count. Prosecutors later said he was located at a 7-Eleven about four hours after the stabbing and had Ericka Wilson’s blood on his hands and clothing. The district attorney’s office said the attack left 23 wounds to her neck. Sheriff’s officials initially withheld her name pending identification and family notification, and said early in the case that the motive was still under investigation.
As the case developed, prosecutors said the emergency call had followed a planned ambush. Wilson had taken a vacation day from work, driven from Oakland and gone first to a workplace tied to Ericka Wilson, authorities said. She worked at two Ross stores in the area, and prosecutors said Wilson went to both the Spring Valley and Santee locations that night while looking for her. When she did not appear where he expected, he drove to her apartment complex and waited there. District Attorney Summer Stephan later said he displayed “vicious brutality” in the attack.
Prosecutors said the attack began when Ericka Wilson pulled into her parking area near midnight and started to get out of her vehicle. Wilson approached in a ski mask, grabbed her and stabbed her, the district attorney’s office said. The public record does not say how long he waited at the apartment complex or whether Ericka Wilson saw him before he reached her. It does say she tried to get away and called 911 during the attack. That call, along with the report of a woman calling for help, brought deputies and firefighters to Canyon Drive.
A neighbor became part of the timeline before deputies arrived. Prosecutors said the neighbor saw the attack and chased Wilson with a bat, forcing him to flee on foot. Court accounts later said neighbors kept him from escaping in his vehicle. Wilson left behind his car, gloves and the knife used in the killing, prosecutors said. Investigators also said his keys were found near Ericka Wilson’s body. Those details helped build the prosecution’s case that he had come prepared, attacked from concealment and lost control of his planned escape after people nearby heard or saw what was happening.
The Wilsons had been married for six years and had one child together. They had separated before the killing. Prosecutors and later reports described multiple earlier domestic violence incidents during the marriage and said the couple had been separated for about two years. The sentencing record described months of planning before the attack, including an attempt to buy a gun and a later request for vacation time covering the date of the killing. Officials did not release full details of the earlier domestic violence incidents in the district attorney’s sentencing announcement.
The legal result came after a jury trial in San Diego County. Jurors convicted Wilson in December of first-degree murder. They also found true a lying-in-wait special circumstance and a knife-use allegation. Those findings meant the case was no longer only about whether Wilson killed Ericka Wilson, but also about how the killing was carried out. Prosecutors argued that the trip from Oakland, the work leave, the mask and gloves, the waiting at job sites and the parking lot ambush showed planning and concealment. The court then imposed life without parole plus one year.
Stephan said after sentencing that her office remained focused on intimate partner violence and accountability. “We must keep fighting to safeguard victims of domestic violence and hold their abusers accountable,” she said. Her office said Deputy District Attorney Alexandra Lorens prosecuted the case. The district attorney also said seven people were killed by a current or former intimate partner in San Diego County in 2024, with one additional domestic violence-related homicide victim. The office said 2025 figures would not be available for several months.
Ericka Wilson’s life appeared in the public file mostly through relationships and the words of people who remembered her. She was a wife of six years before the separation, a mother and a worker returning home near midnight when she was killed. One online memorial message called her smart, funny, hard working, determined and loyal. The criminal record added the final details: a parking space, a call for help, a neighbor with a bat, and deputies arriving too late to save her.
Kandynn Wilson’s sentence leaves him with no parole option for the killing of Ericka Wilson. The case stands closed at the trial court level unless a post-sentencing challenge or appeal is filed.
Author note: Last updated June 23, 2026.