Alexis Daniel Rosas of Indio, 29, was previously convicted of first-degree murder and attempted murder, along with the two special circumstance allegations and sentence-enhancing gun and great bodily injury allegations for the 2019 slaying of Makayla Jean Massey, also known as Anita Garcia, of Victorville.

John Hall of the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office confirmed the terms of the sentence to City News Service.

Rosas’ girlfriend, 32-year-old Maury Duarte, was convicted in June of first-degree murder and special circumstance allegations of killing a witness to a crime and lying in wait, as well as being an accessory to a felony. She was sentenced in August to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The jury recommended capital punishment for Rosas following a penalty trial for him alone.

Prosecutors did not seek a death sentence for Duarte. During an August hearing at the Larson Justice Center in Indio, Riverside County Superior Court Judge Jennifer Gerard imposed the sentence required by law for her.

Rosas was previously being without bail at the Byrd Detention Center in Murrieta.

According to a trial brief filed by the District Attorney’s Office, Massey’s boyfriend, identified only as “Abram,” had been at odds with Rosas, a documented member of an Indio street gang, bearing the moniker “Trigger,” for some time. The conflict had resulted in the defendant harassing and attacking the victim on multiple occasions.

On June 24, 2019, the feud led to Rosas going to the abandoned house in the 45-400 block of Oasis Street where Abram and Massey were residing and shooting him in the chest — an act which the victim witnessed and detailed to Indio police immediately afterward, prosecutors said.

Abram was hospitalized but ultimately recovered from the wound.

After the shooting, Massey checked into a Motel 6 in Indio for her own safety, but Rosas learned of her whereabouts and that she had made contact with police, prompting him to plan her murder.

He enlisted Duarte’s assistance, and they used her 2005 Toyota Camry for transport. In the pre-dawn hours of June 25, 2019, Rosas went to the victim’s motel room and persuaded her to come out, then physically restrained her inside the Toyota, which Duarte drove to a vacated ranch in the 82-600 block of Avenue 53 in Thermal, according to court papers.

Once at the location, Rosas shoved the victim out of the car and ordered her to start walking toward a gate.

“The defendant kicked her in the stomach, causing her to fall to the ground,” the brief said. “Rosas then shot Makayla five times. One shot was to her head. He knew he had killed her after the second shot, but he continued to shoot bullets into her body.”

He left the victim where she was slain, and he and Duarte headed back toward Indio, dumping the .380-caliber semiautomatic pistol that he’d used to kill Massey on a roadside.

Massey’s remains were discovered within a couple of days, leading to a sheriff’s investigation that pointed to Rosas as the murderer.

The defendants were arrested without incident on Avenue 42 in Indio on June 30, 2019.

Court papers claimed both Rosas and Duarte had conspired in retail fraud, but neither had documented prior felony convictions in Riverside County.

California currently has a moratorium in place on executions, ordered by Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2019. The last execution in the state occurred in 2006.

The post Death Sentence Handed Down In Coachella Valley Murder appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

The 16-year-old’s tied-up nude body was found inside a horse trailer parked on a remote ranch in the Ribidoux area. The teen had been shot in the head and there was evidence of rape and torture at the property, investigators said.

Within days of finding the teen, Michael Forrest Thornton, 45, and Janeen Marie Snyder, 21, both of Rialto, were charged with first-degree murder with special circumstances in the brutal slaying.

Separate juries convicted the pair of murder and determined the couple was eligible for the death penalty for kidnapping and torture.

On Tuesday, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation announced Thornton was dead at age 68.

“At 8:35 p.m. [Monday], Thornton was pronounced deceased by a registered nurse in the hospice unit who determined the initial cause of death to be natural,” CDCR announced.

Records show Thornton died at the prison system’s California Medical Facility in Vacaville.

A quiet death — unlike his victim’s.

Thornton and Snyder held Curran captive for 14 days, giving her drugs, intimidating her with firearms and sexually exploiting her, Judge Paul Zellerbach said during sentencing.

Curran’s death marked one in what authorities believed to be a long string of attacks on young girls. Zellerbach said Thornton used Snyder to lure teens to him so he could participate in sexual sadism.

Snyder met Thornton, the owner of a chain of Southern California hair salons, as a runaway when she was 13 or 14 years old and he was in his 30s, Riverside County Deputy District Attorney Mike Rushton said at the time of the trials.

“She eventually became his lover,” he said.

Snyder had been working as a part-time stripper in the Las Vegas area at the time of Curran’s disappearance, according to media reports.

Investigators found Curran was taken from her hometown to California by the killers. Her last moments were especially brutal, according to media reports. She was tied to rafters by her hands and feet and violated.

“It was Miss Snyder who ultimately approached Miss Curran in this very vulnerable position, put the gun to her forehead and pulled the trigger,” Zellerbach said.

Snyder, now 45, is housed at Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla. She is ineligible for parole due to her condemned sentence.

Loved ones tearfully testified Curran was killed before she got her driver’s license, before she ever attended a prom, before she graduated from high school. The Dalmation-loving teen was the would-be maid of honor at her only sister’s wedding. A young life cut short at the hands of two people who outlived her by decades.

The post Girl’s Sadistic Inland Empire Murderer Dies Quietly In Prison appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.