Frank Felix and Joshua Acosta (Fullerton Police Department).
A 33-year-old California man has been sentenced to life in prison for the murder of three individuals, which included the parents of a 17-year-old girl he had developed an obsession with after meeting her in the “furry” subculture almost nine years ago.
The man, Frank Sato Felix, was convicted last year of three counts each of first-degree murder and enhancements of multiple murders, as confirmed by the Orange County District Attorney’s Office. Following the conviction, he was sentenced by a judge to serve three life terms in prison.
The victims of this tragic incident were identified as 39-year-old Jennifer Goodwill-Yost and her husband, 35-year-old Christopher Yost, as well as their friend Arthur “Billy” Boucher, who was staying at their home during the time of the murders.
According to a courtroom report from the Orange County Register, Yost’s sister made a victim impact statement.
“No sentence can erase the horrors of that night,” she said.
Felix also made a brief statement in which he reportedly called himself a “beast.”
“To the families and the victims, I would trade places in a minute with those who were killed,” he reportedly said.
As Law&Crime previously reported, prosecutors say the teen girl in 2016 “was introduced by her mother to the ‘furry’ subculture, which involves people dressing up in animal costumes.” It was at these events where the girl met Felix, then 25 years old, and his buddy Joshua Charles Acosta, an Army mechanic stationed at Ft. Irwin in Barstow, who was 21 at the time.
According to prosecutors, Felix became “obsessed” with the girl and was eventually “romantically involved” with her.
Goodwill-Yost and her husband, 35-year-old Christopher Yost — the girl’s stepfather — disapproved of the relationship. Felix decided he needed the parents out of the way so the 17-year-old girl could run away with him. He gave Acosta a shotgun and ammunition and on Sept. 24, 2016, they drove to the Yost home in Fullerton.
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They waited until the Yosts and Boucher went to sleep. The girl came outside and sat with Felix in his truck parked in the driveway. Armed with the shotgun, Acosta slipped inside the home. Acosta executed Boucher as he slept on the couch. He then went into the master bedroom where he shot Goodwill-Yost in the face. Yost ran for his life and tried to escape to a patio area. But Acosta tracked him down and shot him in the head.
Acosta, Felix and the girl headed back to Felix’s house in Sun Valley, where they burned their clothes and tried to destroy their cellphones, prosecutors said. Meanwhile, the Yosts’ other children, ages 6 and 9, were sleeping in the home at the time of the murders and woke up to find their parents and Boucher dead. They called 911.
After an investigation, Fullerton police arrested Felix at his home and Acosta at Fort Irwin. Prosecutors charged Acosta with three counts of first-degree murder. A jury convicted him in 2018, and a judge sentenced him to life in prison.
As for the teen girl, the Orange County Register reported that she testified at Acosta’s trial that she had no knowledge of the plot to kill her parents. She reportedly told the jury that her stepfather had been molesting her for more than a decade. After telling Felix about the abuse, she claimed he threatened to tell her mother about the molestation unless she had sex with him. Prosecutors never charged her with a crime.
