California Supreme Court won’t review Hacienda Heights murder convictions

From City News Service:

LOS ANGELES — The California Supreme Court refused Wednesday to review the case against two young men convicted for their roles in the April 2006 shooting deaths of two teenagers in Hacienda Heights over a drug dispute.
The state’s highest court denied petitions seeking review of the case against Salvador Villanueva and Angelo Jacob Vasquez.
On May 6, a three-justice panel from the 2nd District Court of Appeal rejected the defense’s contention that there were errors in the pair’s trial in Pomona Superior Court.
In the 15-page ruling, the justices noted that Villanueva and Vasquez were convicted as “aiders and abettors” in the April 3, 2006, slayings of Christopher Trevizo, 15, and Demetries Flores, 17, and the attempted murder of Flores’ brother.
Co-defendant Christopher Jay Murray pleaded no contest to the murders and the attempted murder, but claimed to be insane at the time the crimes were committed. Jurors found him sane.
Trevizo and Flores were killed while in a flood control channel near Los Altos Drive in a crime motivated by the theft of marijuana that had been taken at gunpoint from Murray a few months earlier.
“Murray, Vasquez and Villanueva were all carrying guns as they spotted the Trevizo trio and then followed them into the wash area,” the justices noted in their ruling.
Murray shot and killed Trevizo and Flores and shot at but missed Flores’ brother, while Villanueva and Vasquez pointed guns at the Flores brothers but fired no shots, according to the appellate court panel’s ruling.
After the shooting, the three defendants showered and then disposed of their guns and clothes, according to the ruling.

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