Background: Maricopa County government complex in Mesa, Ariz. (Google Maps). Inset: Michael Lanunziata (Maricopa County Sheriff's Office).
An Arizona man who gunned down his roommate at a group home will spend the next two decades in prison.
Michael Lanunziata, 38, was found guilty by a jury of second-degree murder and sentenced on Monday to 20 years in prison. In a press release from the Maricopa County Attorney's Office, Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell said Lanunziata fatally shot Joseph Lephiew, with whom he lived at a transitional living environment alongside five other men. On Jan. 25, 2024, police responded to the home in Phoenix, Arizona, after receiving a report about a shooting.
When officers arrived, Lanunziata jumped out a window and went to the roof.
Mitchell said Lanunziata spoke with first responders from the roof while officers went inside, where they found Lephiew dead of multiple gunshot wounds. He was lying on the staircase, where police found Lanunziata's handgun and several shell casings. Other residents told police that they heard the two men arguing before the gunshots.
Lanunziata initially claimed that he shot Lephiew, who was unarmed, in self-defense, telling police that Lephiew "came at him." His stories became inconsistent, and Mitchell said Lanunziata "manufactured a reality to fit his claim." She said evidence at the scene proved that Lephiew's killing was not a case of self-defense.
Mitchell said Lephiew's murder "was a deadly and unjustified act of violence inside a place where people should have felt safe."
According to reporting by Phoenix-based radio station KTAR, this was not the first time Lanunziata claimed self-defense following a deadly shooting. In a sentencing memo obtained by KTAR, prosecutors wrote that Lanunziata said he was defending himself when he shot and killed another housemate, Lamar Reid Jr., in Henderson, Nevada, in 2016. Prosecutors ultimately dropped the charges against Lanunziata.
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