A man was convicted Wednesday of raping and strangling a 20-year-old woman whose body was wrapped in a blanket and dumped in a shopping cart in Los Angeles in 2017.
A Los Angeles Superior Court jury deliberated less than a day before finding Rene Rolando Ailon, 27, guilty of first-degree murder and forcible rape. Jurors also found true the special circumstance allegation of murder during the commission of a rape.
The District Attorney’s Office opted before Ailon’s trial not to seek the death penalty. He is facing life in prison without the possibility of parole, with sentencing scheduled for Feb. 22.
Maylin Zulian Fuentes-Sanabria was raped and strangled when she went to Ailon’s apartment in the 1500 block of South Gramercy Place on May 13, 2017, according to Deputy District Attorney Paul Thompson.
After killing the woman, Ailon went to work. He kept the body in his apartment for 24 hours before wrapping it a blanket and leaving it in a discarded shopping cart several blocks away, according to the prosecutor.
A resident came upon the victim’s body a short time later, and Ailon was linked to the crime through DNA evidence and phone records, according to the District Attorney’s Office.
He was arrested on May 24, 2017, and has remained jailed since then.