Convicted double murderer Joseph Jimenez Jr. makes a brief statement prior to being sentenced at the Riverside Hall of Justice on Monday, Feb. 26, 2024, in Riverside, Calif., as defense attorney Charles Kenyon listens. (Will Lester/The Orange County Register via AP)

A California man will spend the rest of his life behind bars for shooting and killing two teenagers in a movie theater during the summer of 2021, a Riverside County judge ruled this week.

On July 26, 2021, Anthony Barajas, 19, and Rylee Goodrich, 18, were on a date. They were watching the 9:35 p.m. screening of the “The Forever Purge” — the fifth movie in a franchise that depicts a government-approved, one-night violent free-for-all — at the Regal Edwards Corona Crossings & RPX Movie Theater.

While sitting next to each other in Row F of Theater No. 15, the unaware couple were gunned down by the only other person in the theater. At the time, their killer was barely older than them — only 20 years old. Joseph Jimenez Jr., now 23, would later claim he heard two voices instructing him to take two lives in exchange for his own, and the judge acknowledged that the defendant was diagnosed with schizophrenia.

The violence on the screen masked the sounds of the handgun being fired. Theater workers discovered the bodies after end credits rolled.