Crime & Safety
Pleasanton Home Depot Shooting: Killer, Accomplice Sentenced
The family and friends of slain employee Blake Mohs wiped away tears and held each other as the sentences were read.
PLEASANTON, CA — Benicia Knapps and David Guillory, the two defendants in the April 2023 shooting of 26-year-old Home Depot employee Blake Mohs, were sentenced Thursday morning at the East County Hall of Justice in Dublin. Knapps, 33, who pleaded no contest to second-degree murder in April, will receive 19 years to life in prison. Getaway driver David Guillory, 32, who pleaded no contest to felony charges of child abuse, accessory to robbery, and evading law enforcement, was sentenced to seven years and four months in prison.
The two accepted the charges as part of a plea deal that avoided more serious sentences, and a lengthier trial. Knapps could have faced 25 years to life if charged with first-degree murder. The Mohs family, who initially criticized Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price for charges they perceived to be too lenient, decided to pursue a plea deal in the spirit of forgiveness, and to bring swift closure and avoid reliving the trauma.
“The charges were never accurate in Blake’s case, but our hearts evolved and changed as we went through this process,” mother Laurie Mohs told Pleasanton Weekly. “We (started) to look at the net loss of what a trial will do to your family, will do to your faith, will do to your finances, will do to your community.”
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Alameda County Superior Court Judge Paul Delucchi said Thursday that he did not believe the punishment fit the crime, but acknowledged that the Mohs family accepted the plea deals in a display of “magnanimity,” according to a report from The San Francisco Chronicle.
Mohs’ family and friends attended the sentencing, and many gave impact statements. They wiped away tears, and held each other as the sentencing was read, according to reports from The Weekly and The Chronicle.
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Laurie Mohs noted how she had planned to call her son the Tuesday he was shot, but decided to hold off because they normally spoke each Wednesday.
“Not saying my final goodbye or I love you to my son broke my heart. Telling my family Blake had been shot and killed was torturous,” she said, according to Pleasanton Weekly.
“I’m still lost and devastated,” father Eric Mohs said. “[I’m] barely able to convince myself of this new reality of a future without him. I will miss Blake. His smile, his laugh, his heart and his devotion to others was a bright light that this dark world really needed.”
Matthew Labosky, Mohs’ brother, read a statement from their grandfather Roy Froom, a former law enforcement officer who noted that Mohs had wanted to be a police officer since he was a little boy, and his “hopes and dreams were taken from him.”
Mohs was a Boy Scout and Eagle Scout volunteer, who was engaged to be married to a woman he met at Eagle Scout camp. The two planned to wed at Camp Royaneh.
On April 18, 2023, he confronted Knapps while she was shoplifting, and she resisted and shot him. Mohs was rushed to a nearby hospital, but succumbed to his injuries. Guillory and Knapps fled in a car with a 21-month-old child, and even sped the wrong way down a road before they were eventually apprehended in Oakland.
After what Laurie Mohs described as a year of “dark loneliness,” the Mohs family is trying their best to move on. Laurie said she hopes to create a memorial for victims of violent crimes in Blake’s honor.
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