Ex-boyfriend pleads not guilty to murdering Coachella woman
The ex-boyfriend of a young woman who was shot to death along Interstate 10 pleaded not guilty Monday to murder and other charges.
Damian De Los Santos, 22, of Cathedral City, was arrested Thursday in Mexicali by members of the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department, Coachella Valley Violent Crime Gang Task Force and District Attorney’s Organized Crime Bureau. He was booked at the Riverside County jail in Indio.
Deadly shooting described in arrest affidavit
De Los Santos, along with Andrew Castro, 19, of Palm Springs, are accused in the death of 19-year-old Maria Guadalupe Mendoza of Coachella, who died May 8 at Desert Regional Medical Center.
Both men were charged Wednesday with murder, attempted murder and shooting at an inhabited vehicle. De Los Santos is also charged with being a convicted felon and narcotics addict in possession of a firearm.
Mendoza was shot in the afternoon of May 8 on eastbound Interstate 10 somewhere between Bob Hope Drive and Washington Street in Palm Desert. According to a declaration in support of an arrest warrant prepared by sheriff’s investigator Steven Paixao, De Los Santos saw Mendoza and her new boyfriend at an am/pm convenience store in Cathedral City the day of the shooting.
De Los Santos lifted his shirt to the boyfriend, showed him a dark-colored revolver and said he would kill him, Paixao alleged. The boyfriend sped away in his car with Mendoza, but De Los Santos and Castro allegedly gave chase and followed them onto Interstate 10.
With Castro driving, De Los Santos allegedly fired multiple shots at the boyfriend’s car, including one that passed through Mendoza’s body and lodged in her boyfriend’s leg.
Before she died at a hospital, Mendoza told CHP officers that someone named Damian shot her, Paixao wrote. De Los Santos also allegedly sent a Facebook message to the boyfriend afterward, saying he would shoot him, according to the declaration.
Castro was arrested May 9 after sheriff’s investigators obtained his license plate number by reviewing the convenience store’s surveillance footage, authorities said. Castro made his initial court appearance Wednesday at the Indio courthouse, but his arraignment was postponed to May 25. He was ordered held without bail.
Castro has no prior felony convictions in Riverside County. However, De Los Santos has multiple convictions, including first-degree burglary and receiving a stolen vehicle in 2013, as well as second-degree burglary in 2014, according to court records.
