Guilty: Jury convicts Cathedral City man in kidnap murder case - KESQ
A Cathedral City man was convicted of first-degree murder for killing a 21-year-old man in Sky Valley during a kidnapping four years ago. Andrew Michael De Los Santos, 30, faces life in prison without the possibility of parole for the death of Shane Ayala. A key prosecution witness testified last week that she was smoking drugs in the defendant's Cadillac Escalade when he admitted to her that he had taken Ayala out to the desert and shot him in the head. De Los Santos has maintained that Ayala was killed in late August 2011 by the defendant's 37-year-old accomplice, Luis Raul Diaz, who was convicted in a separate trial and sentenced last November to life in prison. Ashley Prieto, 28, told sheriff's investigators in 2011 that she and De Los Santos had run into each other during a party in Palm Springs and that while they were getting high in his SUV, she asked him if he knew what had become of Ayala, who had... Deputy District Attorney Manny Bustamante asked Prieto if she was certain the defendant told her that he, personally, had killed Ayala. Prieto conceded that her mind was often cloudy as she at various times battled addictions to cocaine and prescription drugs, facilitated by the roughly $11,000 per month she received in ``per capita'' income as a member of a local native American... Source: www.kesq.com
