BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) — In 2021, an ecstatic Timothy Shawn “Chance” Aulston told his father he’d saved the life of someone who had overdosed.

While others fled, Aulston stayed and helped the man, said his father, also named Tim Aulston.

In a tragic irony, the man whose life he saved ended up taking his five weeks later.

Juan Angel Acevedo, 40, shot and killed the 30-year-old Aulston outside a Lake Isabella home. On Wednesday, he was sentenced to 32 years in prison after pleading no contest to voluntary manslaughter.

It’s not enough, said Aulston’s father and stepmother. Acevedo will get visits from family. He’ll go free one day. Meanwhile, Aulston’s gone.

“Our son’s in a cabinet,” Aulston’s father said. “Ashes.”

He told the court about Acevedo’s heartless behavior, laughing and blowing kisses at them at prior hearings, imitating a gun with his hand.

Aulston’s 9-year-old son is tormented by his father’s death, he added. The boy has nightmares featuring Acevedo.

“You’re the monster,” Aulston’s father said while facing Acevedo.

According to sheriff’s reports, deputies were called May 13, 2021, to a home on Curran Way and spoke with a distraught woman who said her boyfriend had shot and killed a man.

Deputies found Aulston face down at the bottom of porch steps, blood coming from his head. Bullets were later removed from his head, right lung, throat and right clavicle, documents said.

Acevedo was gone by the time deputies arrived. Later tracked down and taken into custody, he told detectives Aulston disrespected him by repeatedly challenging him to a fight and refusing to leave. Aulston had been “asking for it,” he said according to court documents.

A witness reported Acevedo threatened Aulston two days earlier. Both men used drugs, the witness said according to the documents.

Leslie Aulston, the stepmother, acknowledged Aulston, whom she first met when he was 7, wasn’t perfect. But she said he didn’t deserve to be shot by a coward with no respect for human life.

Her family will continue to support each other, she told Acevedo. They’ll get through this together.

“You broke us, but you haven’t knocked us all the way down,” she said.