A 38-year-old homeless man who stabbed another transient to death inside a Bellevue Burger King last summer was sentenced to 21 1/2 years in prison on Tuesday, March 31.

Steven O. Padilla approached 65-year-old Jose L. Arias while he was sleeping inside the Burger King on Northeast 24th Street and stabbed him multiple times in the upper torso around 3:15 p.m. Aug. 17. Witnesses said Padilla exited the fast-food restaurant restroom and removed a knife from his jacket pocket, reaching over a partition to stab Arias. The victim staggered out of the restaurant and collapsed in the parking lot, where he was declared dead at the scene.

Padilla fled the scene, but was arrested 1 1/2 miles away. An Everett Police K-9 unit led police to an office complex on the 14300 block of Northeast 24th Street, where a large, fixed-blade knife believed to have been the murder weapon was recovered.

He pleaded guilty to second-degree murder on March 10.