Prosecutors will not seek the death penalty in South El Monte firebomb killings
Prosecutors will not seek the death penalty against four men accused of killing three teens in a firebombing at a South El Monte tire shop.
The decision was announced Tuesday during a hearing for the four men, said Greg Risling, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office.
German Monrreal, 20; Mario Godina, 20; Estevan Castillo, 21; and Roberto Fuentes, 21, are charged with three counts of murder, one count of arson causing great bodily injury and one count of using a destructive device and explosive with the intent to injure a person and destroy property.
The announcement comes more than a year and a half after Destiny Aguirre, 18; Carlos Jimenez, 17; and Rodrigo Gonzalez, 17, were killed in the fire on April 25, 2015.
They had been celebrating Jimenez’s 18th birthday at Cheque Tires, which was known as a community gathering place. Gonzalez’s father owned the shop.
After the party finished, Gonzalez, Jimenez and Aguirre went to sleep inside the shop.
Just before 5:30 a.m., detectives said, the four men threw a Molotov cocktail into the tire shop in the 1200 block of Santa Anita Avenue. They took off in a getaway vehicle.
When firefighters arrived at the tire shop, they saw a young man trying to escape the fire from behind heavily locked gates. They tried to rescue him but watched him die before they could get to him, fire officials said.
The next day, detectives arrested Fuentes in connection with the deadly fire.
Using surveillance video from the fire, homicide detectives were able to identify Castillo, Godina and Monrreal as suspects in the teens’ deaths. By then, the men had already fled the country.
But detectives investigating the teens’ deaths got a tip that Monrreal, Godina and Castillo were hiding out in Mexico, sheriff’s officials said.
With the help of the U.S. Marshal’s Southwest Regional Fugitive Task Force and Mexican state police, detectives found the three men at a ranch at a home in Guadalajara.
They were arrested and flown back to Los Angeles.
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