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...
Bustamante told jurors that De Los Santos overheard the victim making suspicious comments to someone during a cell phone call, moments before returning to find his Cathedral City condo burglarized.
De Los Santos and Diaz beat the victim and demanded he confess to organizing the burglary while the three men traveled to Indio to buy black tar heroin, the prosecutor alleged. "(Ayala) wouldn't admit to stealing from him,'' Bustamante said... The three drove to Sky Valley, north of Thousand Palms, where De Los Santos allegedly killed Ayala and then came back months later and set fire to the remains, Bustamante said.