Aaron Vargas is the highest profile local news story to go national and even international since Jim Jones. His sentencing last week closed yet another unique chapter in Mendocino County history when he was sentenced to an unexpected nine years in prison for shooting to death a Fort Bragg child molester, Darrell McNeill.
Nine years is not a long sentence for deliberately killing someone, but several
factors made it unexpected in the Vargas case. First, the DA had reduced the charges from first degree murder to voluntary manslaughter. There were a great many people in not only the Fort Bragg area but in all areas of the country who felt that Vargas did the community a favor by abruptly ending the serial child abuser’s long, predatory career.
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