Jury selection starts for trial of YV woman accused in marijuana dealer’s death
BANNING, Calif. (KESQ) - Jury selection got underway this week for the trial of a 24-year-old woman accused of joining two young men in robbing and killing a marijuana dealer at a Riverside apartment complex.
Merlin Perales Ortiz of Yucca Valley was arrested in December 2020 following a Riverside Police Department investigation into the slaying of 20-year-old Wesley Flores Miranda, a Honduran national.
Ortiz is charged with first-degree murder, conspiracy and special circumstance allegations of killing in the course of a robbery and killing for the benefit of a criminal street gang.
On Thursday, Riverside County Superior Court Judge Jonathan Mendoza summoned multiple panels of prospective jurors to the Banning Justice Center for screening. The process was expected to continue Friday, with opening statements sometime next week.
The defendant is being held without bail at the Smith Correctional Facility.
Her co-defendants, Isaiah Israel Rodriguez and Cristian Alejandro Runkle, now both 23, pleaded guilty in October 2021 to second-degree murder. In addition to murder, Rodriguez admitted a sentence enhancing gun use allegation. He was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. Runkle was sentenced to 15 years to life.
The holdup occurred on the night of Nov. 8, 2020, at an apartment leased by Runkle's girlfriend, identified only as "Star,'' in the 5200 block of El Cerrito Drive in the Canyon Crest neighborhood of south Riverside, according to a trial brief filed by the District Attorney's Office.
Prosecutors alleged Ortiz and her co-defendants were affiliated with a decades-old San Bernardino street gang and had schemed to rob "weed" dealers throughout the region for months. The prosecution intends to submit evidence of the conspiratorial acts as uncharged crimes, according to the brief.
The trio obtained Miranda's contact information via social media and arranged to meet him at Star's residence, where she fell asleep in her bedroom "because she had been drinking and doing drugs during the day,'' court papers stated.
Ortiz was the principal planner in the holdup, directing Rodriguez to act as the gunman, the brief alleged.
Security surveillance video cameras around the apartment complex captured nearly the entire sequence of events that night, prosecutors said.
Videos showed the victim emerging from his car carrying a backpack, then proceeding to the apartment where Ortiz met him at the door. After Miranda stepped inside -- out of the cameras' view -- investigators alleged he was confronted by Runkle and Rodriguez, and the latter brandished a Glock 9mm semiautomatic handgun at him.
Ortiz ordered the young man in Spanish to give up his backpack, but he refused, leading to a struggle in which he was fatally shot in the upper body just outside the doorway, according to the prosecution.
The trio fled with the backpack, leaving the now-awakened Star to deal with the dead man and Riverside police officers who soon converged on the apartment complex, according to the brief.
Four weeks of collecting evidence culminated in detectives identifying the defendants, all of whom were taken into custody without incident in San Bernardino County.
Court records show Ortiz has no documented prior felony or misdemeanor convictions. However, since she was jailed almost six years ago, she has been charged with assault resulting in great bodily injury for an unspecified confrontation at the Smith lockup.
