Death sentence for killer of 4
An Azusa gang member guilty of slaying four people in separate incidents between 1999 and 2004 was sentenced Monday to death.
Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Kathleen Kennedy upheld a jury’s recommendation and imposed the death penalty on Ralph “Swifty” Flores, now 26, for three of the murders.
Three of his victims were Claudia Chenet, Fenise Luna and Miguel Reyes.
Flores was also convicted in the shooting death of 16-year-old Christopher Lynch. But Flores was 17 at the time, making him ineligible for the death penalty in that crime.
Flores was part of a group of Azusa 13 gang members responsible for crimes, some of them racially motivated against blacks, during those years in the normally quiet San Gabriel Valley town.
Azusa police and L.A. County Sheriff’s Department detectives launched investigations into the gang and eventually arrested eight members, who have been tried and convicted in the last four years.
Flores, convicted last year, was the last of the group to be tried.
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