Key prosecution witness testifies in Sky Valley murder trial

A key prosecution witness in the trial of a man charged in a kidnap-murder testified Tuesday that she was smoking drugs in a Cadillac Escalade when he admitted to her that he had taken the victim out to the desert and shot him in the head.

Ashley Prieto, 28, took the stand in the trial of Andrew Michael De Los Santos, who is accused in the August 2011 execution-style slaying of 21-year- old Shane Ayala.

De Los Santos, 30, has maintained that Ayala was killed by the defendant’s 37-year-old accomplice, Luis Raul Diaz, who was convicted in a separate trial for his role in the kidnap-slaying and sentenced last November to life in prison.

But in an account she first related to sheriff’s investigators in December 2011, Prieto said she and De Los Santos ran into each other during a party in October of that year in Palm Springs. She said that while they were getting high in his SUV, she asked him if he knew what had become of Ayala, who had gone missing months earlier.

Deputy District Attorney Manny Bustamante asked Prieto if she was certain the defendant told her that he, personally, had killed Ayala.

“Absolutely. One-hundred and ten percent,” she replied.

During cross-examination, defense attorney John P. Dolan, grilled the witness about the reliability of her memory, given her drug usage. Prieto conceded that her mind was often cloudy during the past decade, as she at various times battled addictions to cocaine, oxycontin, marijuana, methamphetamine, heroin and Xanax.

The addictions were fueled by personal emotional issues and facilitated by the roughly $11,000 per month she receives in “per capita” income as a member of a local native American tribe, she testified.

“At that time I just wanted to numb,” she said. “(I was) in and out of rehab; young, dumb and lots of money.”

Prieto acknowledged eight separate stints in drug rehabilitation programs. “I’m currently in rehab now,” she testified. She said she couldn’t remember precisely which drug she and the
defendant were smoking when he confessed to her, but deduced it was likely marijuana, heroin or meth. And though some details escape her, she said she was only testifying to those facts that she specifically recalls.

“What I say today, I remember. I remember 100 percent,” Prieto said.

In his opening statement on Monday, Bustamante told jurors that De Los Santos overheard the victim making suspicious comments to someone during a cell phone call, moments before returning to find his Cathedral City condo burglarized.

Believing Ayala had set him up, De Los Santos and Diaz beat up the 21-year-old victim and demanded he confess to organizing the burglary while the three men traveled to Indio to buy black tar heroin, the prosecutor alleged.

“(Ayala) wouldn’t admit to stealing from him,” Bustamante said, referring to the alleged motive for the slaying.

De Los Santos ordered Ayala to take a shower, don a hoodie to cover his busted lip and swollen, bruised eye, then ordered the victim to walk quietly through the Cathedral Canyon Country Club complex to Diaz’s Toyota Camry, the prosecution alleges. The three drove to Sky Valley, north of Thousand Palms, where De Los Santos ultimately killed Ayala and then came back months later and set fire to the remains, Bustamante alleged.

Dolan offered jurors a different version, claiming that it was Diaz who killed Ayala and that De Los Santos feared he might be next. De Los Santos admits he beat up Ayala at the condo over the burglary and that he wanted to take him out to the desert, beat him further, then leave him out there to “teach him a lesson,” his lawyer said.

But Diaz, a convicted felon who had spent time in prison, was using heroin and cocaine that day and became so high and jumpy that he accidentally fired a pistol round inside the condo while Ayala was in the shower, Dolan said.

“(De Los Santos) is fearful. He is concerned. He’s wondering what’s going to happen,” his attorney said.

Ayala voluntarily climbed into Diaz’s Camry, but became concerned when they reached the isolated desert area, jumped from the car and started running, according to Dolan. Diaz gave chase, pointed the gun and threatened to shoot Ayala if he didn’t stop, the attorney alleged.

De Los Santos said he heard three shots, after which Diaz said he had killed Ayala and would kill De Los Santos if he told anyone, the defense attorney alleged.

All three men had been using drugs, and the precise day of the killing in late August 2011 remains murky.

Ayala’s sister, Destiny, said she last received a text from her brother on Aug. 21 of that year. She reported him missing on Sept. 2, 2011, and a family of hikers found his charred remains 3 1/2 months later — on Dec. 19 — in the desert several miles north of Thousand Palms Canyon and Dillon roads.

Prieto, who said she would often blow her entire income on drugs before her next monthly check arrived, admitted she owed money to De Los Santos. The defense lawyer has alleged she made up a story about what De Los Santos told her to avoid paying the debt.

De Los Santos, Dolan said, played absolutely no role in Ayala’s killing. “Factually, he is innocent,” he told jurors.

Prosecutors decided against seeking the death penalty, so De Los Santos faces life in prison without the possibility of parole if convicted of first- degree murder with a special circumstance allegation of kidnapping in the commission of a murder.