Felon found guilty of shooting girl in car near downtown Indio

INDIO, Calif. (KESQ) - A parolee who shot a teenage girl in the head as she rode in a passing vehicle near downtown Indio was convicted of attempted murder and other charges, prosecutors confirmed today.

Following two full days of deliberations, an Indio jury late Monday found Vicente Manuel Reyes, 30, of Thousand Palms, guilty of the 2018 attack. Along with two counts of attempted murder, jurors convicted Reyes of sentence-enhancing gun and great bodily injury allegations and an allegation of being a prior-strike felon.

Superior Court Judge Anthony Villalobos has not yet scheduled a sentencing hearing at the Larson Justice Center.   

Reyes is being held without bail at the Benoit Detention Center.   

"You have to be an excellent marksman to shoot at a vehicle and not kill someone,'' Deputy District Attorney Kevin Roeder told jurors in his closing argument last week. "There was an intent to kill here. The victim, Ashley, was 14 at the time. She did not do anything wrong."

According to the prosecutor, the victim, now an adult, was in the line of fire because the defendant was targeting the person near her in the sedan passing by his cousin's house on the night of May 20, 2018.

Roeder recalled the testimony of a man named "Lenny," who had attended school with Reyes and became, for reasons not specified, an object of the defendant's scorn.

Lenny later told Indio Police Department detectives that he was ``the intended target'' that night as he sat near Ashley, according to the prosecution.

Along with Ashley and Lenny, who was then in his late teens, a 15-year- old boy, a 13-year-old girl and a 5-year-old girl, whose identities weren't provided, were also in the vehicle, according to police.

Investigators said Reyes fired on the vehicle as it traveled through the area of John Nobles Avenue and Monroe Street. The felon was in the neighborhood, visiting his cousin's residence at the time, according to testimony.

Roeder said the defendant fired two shots from his handgun through the rear window of the car, striking Ashley in the head. The bullet went through her jaw and knocked out a tooth.   

The second bullet nearly struck one of the other vehicle occupants, according to the prosecution.  

"When he shot at the car, he did it wilfully," Roeder said, adding that Reyes immediately fled.

Defense attorney John Dolan insisted all eyewitness testimony was unreliable.  

He told jurors in his closing argument that one of the witnesses answered ``I don't know'' 75 times while on the stand, raising doubts about the party's credibility.

"This case is all chaos,'' Dolan said, pointing to what he characterized as confusing details presented by the prosecution. "'There's no doubt my client went to his cousin's house, and then he fled to go home when there were shots heard in the area. The question is whether he was the shooter?"  

The attorney said witnesses couldn't even be certain about the type of clothing the gunman was wearing.

Ashley has no memory of what happened when she was shot. She underwent surgery at a Coachella Valley trauma center and ultimately recovered from the bullet wound.

Reyes was identified as the assailant three days after the attack and was arrested without incident in Cathedral City.  

Court records show that in 2012, he and two other juveniles stabbed a boy in the parking lot of an Indio movie theater. Reyes was prosecuted as an adult and pleaded guilty to felony assault a year later.

He was sentenced to five years in state prison but was paroled in the summer 2017, according to court documents.