A transient who fatally stabbed a 64-year-old Riverside woman who was walking her dogs has been sentenced to 15 years to life in state prison.
Darlene Stephanie Montoya, 28, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in Superior Court in Riverside on Aug. 22. Several sentencing-enchancement allegations were then dropped.
The slaying of Ke Chieh Meng happened on April 3, 2021, four days after Montoya was cited and released after police say she used a skateboard to assault someone. Montoya spent only hours in jail. She wasn’t required to pay bail because of the COVID-19 bail schedule for misdemeanors and less-serious felonies that was in place at the time.
The victim of the skateboard attack said Montoya told her, in front of police, “The next time I try to kill you, it will be with a knife. I will stab you to death.”
Meng was walking her two dogs on Golden Avenue when Montoya, whose last known address was in Monterey Park, randomly attacked Meng, police said.
Meng’s son, James “Yi” Bai of Dallas, said he and her mother immigrated to the United States in 1998 and settled in Garden Grove. She worked 22 years as a waitress, putting her son through UC Davis. She moved to Riverside in 2009.
Meng was friendly to everyone she met, Bai said.
Meng would prepare meals for visitors and load up relatives and neighbors with the apples, pears, mangos, lemons and vegetables she grew in the backyard of her Riverside home.
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