A group of young people met him at that corner and an altercation occurred resulting in the young man being senselessly pushed into traffic and hit by a car.

The Hemet youth sustained major head & brain injuries as a result. He remains hospitalized to this day. The skateboard he was riding was stolen following this tragic incident.

Hemet Police Detectives immediately began investigating this case and were determined to identify those responsible. Today, investigators took four (4) teens into custody for their involvement in this incident. Detectives are not looking for any other suspects.

Three (3) of the teens are 15-years-old and the fourth is 16-years-of-age. Two of them are related. All four attend a local Hemet high school, but detectives will not say if they attend the same school as the victim.

Because of laws regarding the detention of potential juvenile offenders, their names or other identifiers will not be released. The victim’s family, who maintain vigil at his bedside, have been advised of this latest development by investigators.

The teens will be transported to Riverside County Juvenile Hall and will be facing multiple charges each.

HPD | Contributed

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Two men attack murder victim in his car

On Monday, January 13 at 8:40pm, Hemet Police responded to the 1100 block of W. Oakland (at the corner of Oakland and Hamilton) to a report of a ”man down.” Though CPR was performed, the victim, unidentified at this time, succumbed to his injuries, having been shot in his car.  The fatal shooting involved multiple gunshots delivered by two men at the Crestwood Apartments.

The two subjects fled on foot and were picked up by a vehicle which fled the scene. Given this, it seems as though this was a contract killing or set-up murder.  

The Hemet Police Department is seeking public assistance in this active investigation. Anyone with any information regarding this incident is encouraged to contact Detective Sergeant Gabriel Gomez at (951) 765-2396. Tipsters can also provide information through the Hemet PD smartphone App available for free via the App Store for iOS devices and Google Play for Android.  Anonymous tips are always accepted.

This exclusive photo was supplied by Eddie George of Hemet Eye News and shows a car ravaged by gunshots.  The Hemet San Jacinto Chronicle wishes to thank Hemet Eye News without whose help this article would have been impossible.

Several calls to Sergeant Gomez by our editorial staff went unreturned at the time of publication

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Search: 2 assailants, 1 death

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Authorities say a 46-year-old San Jacinto man died after losing control of his speeding vehicle and plowing head-on into a San Jacinto tree earlier this morning, Sunday, Sept. 1.

The accident, which happened on State St., just south of Soboba Rd. and north of Record St., caused the victim to be ejected from his vehicle; which exploded and burst into flames upon impact. The car fire then ignited a vegetation fire. It was not immediately known if the victim was wearing a seat-belt at the time of the crash, according to CHP.

Witnesses from as far as several blocks away later reported seeing the vehicle traveling at over 100 mph just moments before hearing a loud boom followed by an explosion.

CHP, along with Riverside County Sheriff’s and Cal Fire/Riverside County Fire departments and other emergency personnel were dispatched to the scene just after 1 a.m., after receiving reports of a vehicle that had smashed into a tree and burst into flames, CHP Sgt. Brian King later reported from the scene.

Deputies arrived within minutes of the dispatched call and confirmed finding a vehicle fully engulfed in flames and updated that the car fire had begun to spread to nearby vegetation.

More than two dozen Cal Fire and Soboba firefighters and paramedics soon arrived at the scene and spent about thirty minutes knocking down the vegetation blaze ignited by the vehicle fire. The impact left the car, which was later described as a 2018 Dodge Charger, destroyed and completely unrecognizable.

The driver and sole-occupant of the vehicle, who was identified Michael Anthony Vega, 46, of San Jacinto, suffered major traumatic injuries when he was ejected from his car and was pronounced deceased at the scene at 1:10 a.m.

During their subsequent investigation, CHP officers determined the driver of the Dodge had been traveling northbound on State St. at a high rate of speed, when “for reasons still under investigation the vehicle went off the roadway and collided into a tree,” King reported.

“As a result of the impact, the driver was ejected out of the vehicle and the vehicle caught on fire,” the Sgt. continued; saying, “The tree that it struck then caught on fire as well.”

The tremendous, high-speed collision left vehicle parts and debris scattered across more than 100 yards of the roadway, leaving it blocked and impassable.

As their investigation continued, CHP located and interviewed at least one witness who told them they were ordering food at a Del Taco in the area of State St. and Ramona Expressway when they saw the victim’s vehicle race by.

The witness “put the vehicle at over 100 mph”, according to Sgt.

While officials worked at the scene and cleaned up extensive debris left by the crash they called for the temporary closure of State St. The road remain closed for several hours, and was reopened around 4 a.m.

Alcohol and/or drug intoxication have not been ruled out as contributing factors in the fiery wreck and CHP’s investigation into the deadly crash is ongoing.

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Search: SJ man, 46, ejected & killed

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   A Riverside jury deliberated less than three hours before finding 30-year-old Deon Austin Welch guilty of 16 counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child with a sentence-enhancing great bodily injury allegation. 

Welch is facing 230 years to life in state prison when he’s sentenced by Superior Court Judge Bernard Schwartz on Aug. 9 at the Riverside Hall of Justice.

   The defendant is being held without bail at the Robert Presley Jail in Riverside. The defense rested Monday morning, after which closing arguments were made, and jurors were sent behind closed doors to weigh evidence from the two-week trial.

 According to the prosecution, Welch preyed upon the girl, identified only as “J.H.,” beginning in 2014 when she was 11 years old. The assaults continued, unabated, until the last half of 2016, Deputy District Attorney Sean Oswill wrote in a trial brief.

 Welch lived with the victim’s mother, Adrianna Dina Horowitz, who also had two young sons, and he began groping the girl when her mother was out of the apartment or asleep, Oswill said. The molestation escalated to forced rape and sodomy, according to the prosecutor.

 He said that in March 2014, J.H. revealed to a family friend that Welch had been assaulting her, leading to an investigation and interview with a county forensic examiner, who was informed by the victim that she had been “raped multiple times by the defendant,” according to the brief.

 However, a follow-up medical exam was cut short when Horowitz interfered with the process, and nothing conclusive could be determined, court papers state.

When Horowitz told Hemet police that Welch was no longer in the household and had relocated south of the border, the criminal investigation was shelved, Oswill said.

   In October 2014, a Department of Public Social Services caseworker interviewed J.H., who told the agent that the defendant had returned to the apartment, at which point the agent met with Welch and Horowitz, without notifying Hemet police, according to Oswill.

   “DPSS asked the defendant to sign off on a ‘safety plan’ they drafted, requesting he assist in the supervision of the children while the mother stabilized on her medication,” according to the brief. “The only option left for the victim was to learn to accept the situation and survive. There was no way out and no place to run.” 

 Oswill said caseworkers continued to visit the apartment over the next two years, and during that time, the victim denied she was being sexually abused. But in June 2016, the now-13-year-old girl was three months pregnant.

 Horowitz took the child to a pediatric medical clinic and insisted that her daughter “was not sexually active, but also wanted her placed on birth control,” according to the brief.

   When Horowitz asked clinical staff whether they could perform an abortion on J.H., police were notified, Oswill said. During a September 2016 interview with a Hemet police investigator, J.H. “disclosed being raped at least 90 times by the defendant,” the prosecutor wrote.

   On Nov. 4, 2016, the 13-year-old gave birth, and the baby’s DNA was tested, resulting in confirmation that Welch was the father, according to Oswill.

Horowitz later admitted to police that her daughter may have attempted to tell her that Welch was sexually assaulting her, but she either couldn’t recall or tried to “block it out,” according to a tape played in court by the prosecution. Horowitz pleaded guilty in June 2018 to child abuse, perjury, and accessory to a felony. She was sentenced to a year in jail and four years probation. 

   Welch was arrested in March 2017.

J.H. was appointed a guardian, who initiated a lawsuit against DPSS and the county on her behalf. That civil action led to a $10 million settlement for the victim last summer.

 The case attracted extensive public attention, pointing to significant failings by the county’s child welfare apparatus. DPSS Director Susan von Zabern resigned in September, and county CEO George Johnson ordered a comprehensive review of practices and procedures within the agency, which had come under scrutiny previously for other well-publicized incidents.

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