Left to right: Frank Felix, Joshua Acosta (Fullerton Police Department).
A 33-year-old California man faces life in prison after a jury convicted him of plotting to kill the parents of a 17-year-old girl he became obsessed with after meeting her in the “furry” subculture.
Frank Sato Felix was found guilty of three counts each of first-degree murder and enhancements of multiple murders, the Orange County District Attorney’s Office said. Prosecutors say the girl “was introduced by her mother to the ‘furry’ subculture, which involves people dressing up in animal costumes.” It was at these events where the girl met Felix, then 25 years old, and his buddy Joshua Charles Acosta, an Army mechanic stationed at Ft. Irwin in Barstow who was 21 at the time.
According to prosecutors, Felix became “obsessed” with the girl and was eventually “romantically involved” with her.
Goodwill-Yost and her husband, 35-year-old Christopher Yost — also the girl’s stepfather — disapproved of the relationship. Felix decided he needed the parents out of the way so the 17-year-old girl could run away with him. He gave Acosta a shotgun and ammunition and on Sept. 24, 2016, they drove to the Yost home in Fullerton.
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They waited until Yosts and their houseguest, family friend Arthur “Billy” Boucher, went to sleep. The girl came outside and sat with Felix in his truck parked in the driveway. Armed with the shotgun, Acosta slipped inside the home. Acosta executed Boucher as he slept on the couch. He then went into the master bedroom where he shot Goodwill-Yost in the face. Yost ran for his life and tried to escape to a patio area. But Acosta tracked him down and shot him in the head.
Acosta, Felix and the girl headed back to Felix’s house in Sun Valley where they burned their clothes and tried to destroy their cellphones, prosecutors said. Meanwhile, the Yosts’ other children, ages 6 and 9, were sleeping in the home at the time of the murders and woke up to find their parents and Boucher dead. They called 911.
After an investigation, Fullerton police arrested Felix at his home and Acosta at Fort Irwin. Prosecutors charged Acosta with three counts of first-degree murder. A jury convicted him in 2018 and a judge sentenced him to life in prison.
“Two little girls, six and nine, went to sleep not knowing the last time they would see their parents would be when they woke up to find them shot to death,” Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer said in a statement. “The trauma inflicted on those little girls compounded by the loss both of their parents in such a violent way is beyond heartbreaking. Violence is never the answer, and a sick and twisted plan turned into life behind bars for two young men.”
As for the teen girl, the Orange County Register reported that she testified at Acosta’s trial that she had no knowledge of the plot to kill her parents. She reportedly told the jury that her stepfather had been molesting her for more than a decade. After telling Felix about the abuse, she claimed he threatened to tell her mother about the molestation unless she had sex with him. Prosecutors never charged her with a crime.
Felix is slated to be sentenced on Jan. 17.
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