A Los Angeles jury convicted two young men Monday of first-degree murder for killing a 19-year-old woman and a 17-year-old girl in Montecito Heights nearly a decade ago.
The jury deliberated for about three hours before returning a verdict against Jose Antonio Echeverria, 28, who was 19 at the time of the crime, and Dallas Stone Pineda, 27, who was 17 when the killings occurred.
Jurors had been ordered to resume deliberations twice, most recently Monday morning after a juror was excused and replaced with an alternate.
Along with the murder convictions for the October 2015 deaths of Gabriela Calzada, 19, and Briana Gallegos, 17, the jury found true the special circumstance allegations of murder while lying in wait and committing multiple murders.
Both Echeverria and Pineda face life in prison without the possibility of parole, although Pineda may eventually qualify for parole because he was a minor at the time of the crime. Sentencing is scheduled for December 11 before Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge George G. Lomeli.
The victims’ bodies were discovered by a woman walking her dog at 2:20 p.m. on October 28, 2015 near Mercury and Boundary avenues along a walking path in Ernest E. Debs Regional Park. Briana was reported missing roughly seven hours later. Police classified both deaths as homicides, noting that Calzada had been shot and both victims had been beaten.
Authorities said the killings were linked to a long-running gang feud, with prosecutors noting that the victims had grown up in a rival gang neighborhood but had a prior friendship with the defendants.
Deputy District Attorney Stephen Lonseth told the jury that the defendants had admitted in their own words what they did, explaining how they “brutally beat and ended those two girls’ lives.” He called the murders cold, calculated, and premeditated, saying the victims were lured into a secluded area before being beaten.
Deputy District Attorney David Ayvazian emphasized that no evidence implicated anyone else, stating, “There are no other killers. There are only two and they’re sitting at this table.”
Defense attorneys argued their clients’ jailhouse statements were false. Echeverria’s attorney, Robert Harton, claimed his client was intimidated by an undercover operative posing as a senior gang member, and urged jurors to consider his client’s youth, either acquitting him or convicting him of second-degree murder.
Pineda’s attorney, Mia Frances Yamamoto, also urged jurors to acquit her client, describing his statements to the undercover operative as “all bogus” and “all fake.”
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