Moberly Woman Benitez Sentenced for Second-degree Murder

A Moberly woman was sentenced to 28 years in prison yesterday for the 2020 shooting death of a man at a McDonald’s drive-thru in Columbia. Angelica Benitez pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, abandonment of a corpse and evidence tampering in the death Marqukis Hayes. Benitez was a passenger in the same pickup as the victim when she shot Hayes. Investigators recovered the pickup in Valley Park with Hayes’s body in the back seat.