A 45-year-old man pleaded guilty Monday to first-degree murder for his part in a 1995 revenge killing in Orange County.
Shannon Ray Gries, who is scheduled to be sentenced July 15, faces 25 years to life in prison. As part of his plea deal, a special circumstance allegation of murder during the commission of a kidnapping will be dropped, so he defendant will not face life in prison without the possibility of parole.
The plea means Gries will have a shot at a parole date in his mid-to- late 60s, Senior Deputy District Attorney Mike Murray said.
After he entered his plea deal, Gries turned to two relatives of the victim — 24-year-old Gonzalo Ramirez — in court and apologized.
“I want to tell you I’m sorry,” Gries said. “I’m really sorry and I hope you get some closure.”
Gries helped kidnap and kill Ramirez April 16, 1995, Murray said. He was driving a van and slammed into a vehicle the victim was in, so Ramirez could be abducted, according to the prosecutor.
His body was found the following morning at the San Canyon Road exit of the San Diego (405) Freeway in Irvine. Murray said Ramirez had a fractured skull and bled to death, and the weapon was likely a meat cleaver.
The revenge plot stemmed from an allegation by co-defendant Norma Esparza, 41, who claimed Ramirez had raped her, Murray said. She told her on- again, off-again boyfriend Gianni Anthony Van, who then told another friend, Murray said.
Van was sentenced in July to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Esparza and another co-defendant, Diane Tran, 46, are expected to be sentenced along with Gries in July.
The prosecutor alleged Van had help carrying out the plot from Gries and Kody Tran, who authorities believe committed “suicide by cop” in a standoff with SWAT officers in Irvine in July 2012.
Esparza and Diane Tran, who was married to Kody Tran, accepted plea deals in the case in exchange for their testimony.
Esparza claimed Ramirez raped her in her dorm room at Pomona College in March 1995.
Esparza told Van a couple weeks later — when they were reconciling in their on-again, off-again romantic relationship — that she had been raped, Murray said.
Van then told his friend Kody Tran about the alleged rape, the prosecutor said.
He said Van and Kody Tran devised a plan to stage a traffic crash involving the victim and then abduct him.
Van, Kody Tran, Esparza, Gries and Rojas went to the El Cortez club in Santa Ana to find Ramirez, Murray said. Esparza pointed out Ramirez, and the rest of the group followed him when he left the bar, the prosecutor said.
A van carrying some of the group deliberately collided with a vehicle carrying Ramirez and a woman, prompting him to get out of the car, at which point he was abducted and taken back to a transmission shop Kody Tran owned, Murray said. Investigators suspect the deadly blows were struck in Irvine before the body was dumped, Murray said.
—City News Service