The murderer of Cotati’s social worker is sentenced to a state hospital

Stormie Jimenez’s daughter was fatally stabbed more than four years ago and a resolution to the killer’s slow legal process left her “disappointed” Friday, she said.

Anderson Quinonez-Cabeza is expected to be sentenced to time in a state hospital for the death of Sylvia Bracamonte, a 33-year-old social worker who was killed on March 20, 2020, at a group home in Cotati.

On Friday, he withdrew his original plea of ​​not guilty in favor of a plea of ​​not guilty by reason of mental insanity. This means he admits to killing Bracamonte, but that he was not of sound mind at the time, according to the Sonoma County Prosecutor’s Office.

Prosecutors acknowledged that doctor’s reports showed Quinonez-Cabeza was legally insane when Bracamonte was killed.

He will now avoid a conviction and instead be transferred to the California Department of State Hospitals.

It’s not the ruling Jimenez, Bracamonte’s mother, said she preferred that way. But it should at least keep Quinonez-Cabeza off the streets, she told The Press Democrat after Friday’s proceedings.

“It’s not justice. It is what it is,” she said. “He’s signing his freedom.”

Bracamonte, a mother of two, was praised for rebuilding her life after dropping out of high school before she was 16 years old.

She enrolled at Santa Rosa Junior College in 2010 and graduated three years later as the first Latina valedictorian with a 3.9 GPA.

After transferring to UC Berkeley, she earned a bachelor’s degree in social welfare and ethnic studies and, in 2019, a master’s degree in social work.

She was killed while working at the Community Support Network’s Sanctuary House on Old Redwood Highway. She was a group home program coordinator and Quinonez-Cabeza was an 18-year-old resident.

Her friends and family say Quinonez-Cabeza targeted Bracamonte in the lead-up to the stabbing. Jimenez said, “She was scared.”

“He took her beautiful life,” Jimenez said. “Now her children have no mother.”

Quinonez-Cabeza’s legal proceedings often stalled due to scheduling conflicts or concerns about his mental competency.

About 10 of Bracamonte’s friends and relatives were present during Friday’s proceedings and many wore T-shirts with her image and a message demanding justice.

One cried as the proceedings concluded and several accused Quinonez-Cabeza of smiling in court and showing no remorse.

They may address him and the court at next month’s sentencing.

In the aftermath of the murder, the Sylvia Bracamonte Memorial Scholarship was established at UC Berkeley in 2020. Every year on the date she died, vigils are held outside the site where she was murdered in Cotati.

Jimenez is part of a civil lawsuit filed June 19, 2020, against Sonoma County and Bracamonte’s employer. Bracamonte’s daughter, through her father, filed another civil suit against the same parties about a year later.

An amended complaint in the first civil case alleges that Community Support Network failed to inform Bracamonte of a policy change regarding the admission of violent individuals with serious psychiatric histories before Quinonez-Cabeza was admitted to Sanctuary House following his release from an inpatient medical psychiatric facility treatment center.

Press Democratic reporter Madison Smalstig contributed to this story

You can reach staff writer Colin Atagi at [email protected]. On Twitter @colin_atagi