An Indio jury recommended capital punishment for a man who gunned down an 18-year-old woman who witnessed him shoot her boyfriend and reported it to police, it was confirmed Thursday.
Jurors deliberated one full day before returning with the recommendation for imposition of a death sentence on 28-year-old Alexis Daniel Rosas of Indio, who killed Makayla Jean Massey, also known as Anita Garcia, of Victorville in 2019.
The panel returned with the unanimous finding about 5 p.m. Wednesday at the Larson Justice Center in Indio. Court minutes were not published until Thursday.
Riverside County Superior Court Judge Jennifer Gerard scheduled a sentencing hearing for Aug. 29. The defense has already filed a motion seeking modification of the verdict, asking the judge to consider reducing Rosas’ punishment to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
There’s also a request on file for a retrial.
Rosas’ penalty trial lasted more than two weeks. He was convicted on June 17 of first-degree murder, attempted murder and true special circumstance allegations of killing a witness to a crime and lying in wait, as well as sentence-enhancing gun and great bodily injury allegations.
A separate jury last month convicted his co-defendant, 32-year-old Maury Duarte, of first-degree murder and special-circumstance allegations of killing a witness to a crime and lying in wait, as well as being an accessory to a felony.
The prosecution did not seek capital punishment for Duarte, and she’s slated to receive a sentence of life in prison without parole on Aug. 30.
She’s being held without bail at the Smith Correctional Facility in Banning, and Rosas is being held without bail at the Byrd Detention Center in Murrieta.
According to a trial brief filed by the District Attorney’s Office, Massey’s boyfriend, identified only as “Abram,” had been at odds with Rosas, a documented member of Indio’s Jackson Terrace street gang, bearing the moniker “Trigger,” for some time. The conflict had resulted in the defendant harassing and attacking the victim on multiple occasions.
On June 24, 2019, the feud led to Rosas going to the abandoned house in the 45-400 block of Oasis Street where Abram and Massey were residing and shooting him in the chest — an act which the victim witnessed and detailed to Indio police immediately afterward.
Abram was hospitalized but ultimately recovered from the non-life-threatening wound.
After the shooting, Massey checked into a Motel 6 in Indio, possibly in an attempt to hide, but Rosas learned of her whereabouts and that she had made contact with police, prompting him to plan her murder, prosecutors said.
He enlisted Duarte’s assistance, and they used her 2005 Toyota Camry to get around. In the predawn hours of June 25, 2019, Rosas went to the victim’s motel room and persuaded her to come out, then physically restrained her inside the Toyota, which Duarte drove to a vacated ranch in the 82-600 block of Avenue 53 in Thermal, court papers said.
Once at the location, Rosas shoved the petrified victim out of the car and ordered to start walking toward a gate.
“The defendant kicked her in the stomach, causing her to fall to the ground,” the brief said. “Rosas then shot Makayla five times. One shot was to her head. He knew he had killed her after the second shot, but he continued to shoot bullets into her body.”
He left the victim where she was slain, and he and Duarte headed back toward Indio, dumping the .380-caliber semiautomatic pistol that he’d used to kill Massey on a roadside.
Massey’s remains were discovered within a couple of days, leading to a sheriff’s investigation that pointed to Rosas as the murderer.
The defendants were arrested without incident on Avenue 42 in Indio on June 30, 2019.
Court papers said both Rosas and Duarte conspired in retail fraud, but neither has documented prior felony convictions in Riverside County.