Prosecutors said the 2023 shooting killed Monique Aldridge, wounded her boyfriend and unfolded while the couple’s 5-year-old son was inside the home.

HAYWARD, Calif. — A San Mateo County man has been sentenced to 35 years in prison after pleading no contest in the 2023 killing of Monique Aldridge at her Hayward home, a shooting that also badly wounded her boyfriend and left the couple’s young son inside the residence.

Vaughn Boatner, now 36, resolved the case after Alameda County prosecutors agreed to drop murder and child abuse counts in exchange for pleas to voluntary manslaughter and attempted murder. The sentence closed the criminal case’s main trial phase, but the facts described by police, local news reports and courtroom testimony continue to frame the case as one that combined a domestic dispute, a fatal garage ambush and a child’s presence during the violence.

The shooting happened on May 11, 2023, at about 2 p.m. in the 100 block of Cassia Drive, where Hayward police said officers responded after several 911 calls reporting gunfire. Inside the home, officers found Aldridge and her boyfriend suffering from gunshot wounds. Aldridge, 30, was later pronounced dead at a hospital. Her boyfriend, a 28-year-old Oakland man at the time, survived despite wounds to his face and mouth. At a later preliminary hearing, the boyfriend said Boatner slipped under a partially open garage door and attacked Aldridge while the woman’s 5-year-old son was nearby watching “A Minecraft Movie” in another room. After the shooting started, the boyfriend testified, he pulled the child to safety and tried to protect him.

Police said the boy was unharmed, and investigators later confirmed he was the child of Aldridge and Boatner. Court testimony described the moments after the shots in blunt terms. The boyfriend said the child’s first concern was his mother. “The first thing he asked me about was his mom,” he testified, according to reporting from the hearing. The surviving victim also described moving the boy into a closet area to keep him away from the gunfire. Other reporting on the case said the boyfriend lost multiple teeth and part of his jaw. KTVU, citing a probable cause warrant, reported that an autopsy found Aldridge had been shot in the head seven times and was in the early stages of pregnancy. Authorities said they believed Aldridge and the surviving victim were in a dating relationship and living together at the time.

The violence, according to later accounts of the investigation, came after a rapid series of personal developments. Law&Crime reported that Aldridge had learned only days earlier that she was pregnant with her boyfriend’s child. Testimony summarized in that report said she and her boyfriend argued on May 8, and that Boatner later confronted Aldridge at a local park. Prosecutors said Boatner raised concerns there about the safety of the 5-year-old boy. The record available in public reporting does not fully explain what happened in the hours between that confrontation and the shooting, and no full plea colloquy or sentencing transcript was publicly provided in the material reviewed here. What is clear is that investigators quickly focused on Boatner as the suspected gunman after the attack at the house.

Within hours, Hayward police said they had identified Boatner, then 33, as the man believed responsible for Aldridge’s killing and the attempted murder of the second victim. Authorities obtained an arrest warrant and a search warrant for his residence, but he was not found there. Police described him as armed and dangerous and said the U.S. Marshals Service later offered a $10,000 reward for information leading to his arrest. Boatner was found on May 22, 2023, in a residential neighborhood in Seattle and taken into custody by the Marshals Service with help from Seattle police and the King County Sheriff’s Office. At the time, police and local outlets said he was booked on homicide, attempted homicide, child endangerment and firearm-related allegations. CBS Bay Area also reported that prosecutors had filed gun enhancements that could have sharply increased his prison exposure if he had been convicted at trial.

The case also left behind a family trying to explain the killing to a child who survived it. Aldridge’s uncle, Lorenzo Smith, called the shooting senseless in an interview shortly after the attack. He said relatives planned to speak with the boy carefully and seek counseling. Those remarks, made when the case was still fresh and Boatner was being sought, underscored the part of the story that remained unchanged through the later plea: one woman was dead, one man lived with severe injuries and one child was left to process the loss of his mother. Boatner was sentenced March 19 and, according to later reporting, was awaiting transfer to a state prison after the hearing.

For now, the case stands at the post-sentencing stage, with Boatner ordered to serve a 35-year term and no trial ahead unless later court action changes the outcome. The next public milestone would likely come only if an appeal, transfer record or restitution proceeding is filed.

Author note: Last updated 2026-04-15.