The violence ended in a Vista motel room after Lopez snapped two vertebrae in her neck, leaving the woman a quadriplegic. After initially refusing to get help for her, Lopez summoned the motel's clerk, who called an ambulance. Pressman said he took note of the callous and brutal nature of the attacks in imposing the lengthy prison sentence. Defense attorney Mary Ellen Attridge, who said her client was high on methamphetamine at the time of the crime, asked Pressman to impose one life sentence. “There is only one life to give to the penal system,” Attridge said.