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PHELAN >> For the last two and a half years, Georgina Richardson says she’s been living in a sort of emotional limbo, waiting and hoping.
Since summer 2012, the 29-year-old mother and wife has welcomed the birth of her fourth child, her only daughter, she’s moved to an entirely different state and she tragically lost her mother, Linda Mae Concepcion, 64, to an assassin’s bullet. But on Friday, Richardson received the call she has been waiting for.
“The (homicide) detective called and said they arrested him,” she said. “It’s been a long time and it does give me some peace knowing that they have the person in custody that did this.”
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The person currently behind bars accused of her mother’s death is the man who raised Richardson, 73-year-old Sigfredo Concepcion.
“He’s my stepfather,” she said in a phone interview. She declined to say where she currently lives.
Investigators say that on July 8, 2012, Concepcion allegedly shot and killed his wife of more than two decades then reportedly placed her body in a chicken coop behind their Phelan property in the 4200 block of Cayucos Road, according to San Bernardino County sheriff’s reports.
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He was arrested Friday evening at a home in the 10300 block of Evergreen Road in Pinion Hills, according to booking logs.
Richardson said the couple’s relationship had become rocky over the final years of their marriage. So much so that the two filed for divorce.
“Their divorce was set to become final on the 11th, only a few days after she was killed,” Richardson said. Linda Mae was planning to leave California to live with her daughter in Alaska, where the young family lived at the time.
“She had already shipped some of her stuff up there,” Richardson said. “She was excited to come and stay with us and see her grandchildren.”
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In anticipation of making the move from California to Alaska, Richardson said her mother spent a few days visiting with her family just a month before her death. During that time, Richardson took video and pictures of the 64-year-old playing with Richardson’s four boys and helping give them a bath.
“She was happy,” Richardson said.
The young mother still recalls the last time she spoke to her mother.
“She was making hats to donate to people at church,” she said. “She was always helping people and making hats. I have hats that she sent me.”
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The following day, a Sunday, Richardson became concerned when she hadn’t heard from her mother.
“She always called me right after church,” she said.
Finally, after many failed attempts, Richardson called her mother’s home phone and left a message saying she was worried and was going to call deputies to check on her.
She didn’t immediately hear back from the sheriff’s Victor Valley station, but then, around 1 a.m. Alaska time, she received the call she was dreading. “They told me my step-father found my mother in the chicken coop and that he called police,” Richardson said.
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Richardson said it’s been a long two-and-a-half years but Richardson said she is grateful to the detectives and prosecutors who worked to gather the evidence to arrest Concepcion.
“It was frustrating, it was very frustrating but I knew they were working on it,” she said.
While her mother is no longer physically with her, Richardson still keeps her close.
“I have a necklace with her ashes that I always keep with me,” she said. “She was a great woman who was my world and didn’t deserve to die that way.”
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Concepcion is being held at West Valley Detention Center and is scheduled to be in Victorville Superior Court Tuesday morning, according to sheriff’s reports.
The couple’s daughter released video of Linda Concepcion