2nd Man Found Guilty Of Burning Woman Over Drugs
MERCED, Calif. (AP) -- A second man accused of kidnapping and burning a California woman to death over a pound of marijuana has been convicted of murder.
A Merced County jury found 32-year-old Alvaro Montanez Reyes guilty Monday of first-degree murder with special circumstances for kidnapping.
The Merced Sun-Star reports that Reyes faces life in prison without parole when he is sentenced on May 12.
Prosecutors say in October 2007 Reyes and three other men bound, gagged and set Rosa Avina ablaze in an abandoned boat over $750 worth of drugs in rural Merced County.
Avina walked nearly a mile before collapsing. She later died in a burn unit in San Jose.
Last year, a jury convicted 27-year-old Luis Alberto Valencia of first-degree murder with special circumstances for torture, kidnapping and mayhem in Avina's death.
Two other defendants are still awaiting trial.
(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
