Man to spend life in prison for killing TikTok personality, his date at California movie theater

LOS ANGELES — A California man has been sentenced to life in prison for fatally shooting a TikTok personality and his date inside a California movie theater.

Joseph Jimenez, now 23, was sentenced Monday to life without the possibility of parole, as well as an additional 50 years to life, for the July 26, 2021, killings in Corona, a city southeast of Los Angeles, the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office said.

Movie theater employees found Anthony Barajas, 19, known on TikTok as itsanthonymichael, and Rylee Goodrich, 18, after an evening showing of “The Forever Purge,” officials have said.

Goodrich was pronounced dead at the theater, and Barajas was taken to a hospital, where he was placed on life support and later pronounced dead.

Jimenez was arrested in nearby El Cerrito the day after the fatal shootings, the district attorney’s office said.

Jimenez, 20 at the time of the killings, entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity. In December, Superior Court Judge Timothy J. Hollenhorst ruled that he was sane, The Associated Press reported.

In 2021, Jimenez told the Riverside Press-Enterprise newspaper in a jailhouse interview he was schizophrenic and had been tormented by voices.

“The voices said my friends and family were going to be killed,” and that led to his shooting the couple, he told the newspaper.

Jimenez’ defense attorney, Charles Kenyon, told reporters after the sentencing Monday that the killings were tragic, but also ultimately resulted because of “the failures of the mental health system,” including inadequate hospitalizations and inadequate care.

Jimenez was “really a product of his mental illness,” Kenyon said outside of court, video from local Fox station KTTV of Los Angeles showed. “Morally speaking, in many ways he didn’t want for this, he didn’t ask for this,” Kenyon said.

“I just want to say to the families that I’m sorry, and I wish I never did what I did, and my condolences,” Jimenez said in court Monday before he was sentenced. “If things could have been different, I would have made a different choice.”

Barajas’ mother, Catherine Barajas, said after sentencing that “I’m very happy that this part is over.”

“It’s been a very long 2 1/2 years, and it’s time to close this chapter, to focus on our son and to carry on his legacy,” she said. “We’re going to do that by continuing to do small acts of kindness, one at a time, to make a difference in the world and to keep him alive.”

She said her son had a beautiful smile and made a difference in the world. Anthony Barajas had almost 1 million followers on TikTok, and more on other platforms.

“Anthony was known for his kindness,” she said.