Gang Member, 19, Gets Life in Slaying of Woman, 3-Year-Old

A 19-year-old Compton gang member was sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison for his role in the murders of a mother and her 3-year-old daughter, who were killed by the same stray bullet from a semiautomatic rifle as they sat in their Rancho Dominguez home.

Superior Court Judge Victoria Chavez ordered Eli Arana, 19, to serve a life sentence without chance of parole for the deaths of Laura Reyes, 28, and her only child, Celeste, on May 8, 1997.

The two were sitting in their living room in front of the television when a .45-caliber bullet from a Marlin rifle equipped with a 17-round magazine penetrated a wooden fence, crashed through a window and struck them both.

The bullet was one of about 40 rounds that members of Arana’s gang in Compton fired from a Marlin weapon and an SKS assault rifle at a rival gang, which had gathered near the Reyes home in the 15800 block of South Frailey Avenue.

The Reyes family were the victims of “a long and storied rivalry between two gangs, and the members today cannot even remember the dispute that started it all,” said sheriff’s investigator Joe Purcell.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Peter Burke said Arana instigated the confrontation and drove the gunmen to the scene.

Two suspected shooters have been identified. The investigation is continuing and they have not been charged, Burke said.

“There’s nothing we’d like better than to charge the people who did the shooting,” he said.

Arana was also convicted of five counts of attempted murder in connection with the attack on the rival gang and three counts of assault, but the sentences for each of those charges will run concurrently with the life term.

He was convicted in part with testimony of a fellow gang member, who testified that Arana admitted his involvement to him.

Reyes’ husband, Eligio, said Thursday that he is pleased with the outcome, but that he will not be satisfied until the shooters are caught.

“Just bring them to justice,” he said. “The sooner the better so I can move on. There is not a day or an hour that goes by that I don’t think about my wife and my daughter.”

Burke said the confrontation between the rival gangs happened when Arana drove by Frailey Street and saw his rivals gathered in front of the house of one of the gang members.

Arana immediately drove to his neighborhood to pick up members of his own gang.

“We got to go back and get them,” he was heard to say, Burke said.

They drove to the scene and stopped around the corner from where the rivals had gathered.

One man armed with the SKS rifle and the other with the Marlin got out, went around the corner and opened fire, Burke said.

“They fired about 40 rounds from a very close distance,” he said.

But the shooting was wild. They struck two cars, including one that was occupied, and two houses, including the Reyes home. At least three shots hit the Reyes house.

The bullet struck Celeste in the head, exited and then hit Laura, who was sitting on the couch.

One of the rival gang members received a minor flesh wound, Burke said.

One of the rifles had a magazine with 17 bullets and the other had 23.

“That’s a lot of ammunition flying around,” he said.

Burke said the sentence probably provides very little solace for Reyes.

“One bullet wipes out the man’s family. It [the sentencing] does nothing for him, except maybe give him assurance that this guy will not be able to do this to someone else’s family.”

As for the gang members who instigated the shooting, none of them have expressed any remorse for killing innocent bystanders, Purcell said.

“In one of our interviews, a gang member’s reaction was:

“We didn’t mean to get them, so it doesn’t count’,” Purcell said.