An Upper Lake man has been convicted in the 2017 beating death of his longtime girlfriend. Willy Tujays Timmons was convicted in the death of Yvette Niko, a member of the Habematolel tribe and who was of Samoan descent, and has become the local face of the effort to bring more awareness to the epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous women. It is unclear what Timmons’ sentence will be, but given the nature of the offense, he could face life in prison.