An American man will spend the rest of his life in prison for killing and going missing with a classmate whom he blamed for getting him kicked out of high school years ago.
Owen Skyler Shover, 23, was found guilty on Friday of killing 16-year-old Aranda Isabel Briones in January 2019 and burying her body somewhere in the harsh San Bernardino Mountains. Her body has not been found.
In August, Shover was found guilty of one count of murder in the first degree and one count of lying in reported.
Three of the girl’s friends saw her get into the man’s car at Bayside Park in Moreno Valley on January 13, 2019. The man has since been found guilty. After that, she was gone. Blood from the girl was the only thing that was left behind. It was found in Shover’s Nissan Versa’s trunk.
But the killer and the victim had known each other for a long time.
They went to Moreno Valley High School together and were friends. On November 7, 2017, the unfortunate pair and some other students were hanging out at a nearby park instead of going to class. That day, Shover had a small handgun with him.
A trial brief written by Riverside County District Attorney Mike Hestrin and obtained by the California-based wire service City News Service says that when a truancy officer broke up the party, Shover threw the gun to Briones and yelled for her to hide it.
Briones became scared. She threw the gun into a drainage canal, but she was caught right away. When police and school officials questioned her, she finally told them the truth: Shover owned the gun and gave it to her.
Both Briones and Shover were kicked out in February 2018.
The girl switched schools but stayed in the same district. The boy, on the other hand, had to move 50 miles north to live with his father in Hesperia.
Prosecutors said in court that Shover kept his anger inside for almost a year in the dry heat.
“He’s a killer with a cold heart,” Hestrin told CNS. “The day he was found guilty, he called his grandfather from jail and asked if he should “get a trophy” for being a murderer. He hasn’t shown any regret.
Police kept track of the defendant’s social media posts from November 2018 to January 2019 in which he or she tried to get another handgun and eventually succeeded.
Then, on January 12, 2019, Shover asked Briones to get together with him once more. The prosecutors used text messages from him to the girl that showed he told her about the Wild West: she would go with him on drug deliveries and ride along as he “robs drug dealers.”
The girl agreed, maybe because of a breach that seemed to have been fixed or the thrill of committing crimes that were hard to punish.
The next day, at 5 p.m., they met at Bayside Park. Within an hour, she posted pictures of the old friends getting back together, enjoying being with their “homie” again and being thrilled to be able to drive.
But the hour was only golden for about half an hour.
The car was going north, toward a trailer park in San Bernardino County, just before 6 p.m. Along the way, Shover sent his brother a message that said, “Get ready for tonight.” Get ready with shovels and lighter fluid.
The boys then took state Routes 138 and 18 to get to the high mountains. Between about 8:30 p.m. and 10:15 p.m., there isn’t much information about where they went because their cell phones lost data. Owen Shover’s phone didn’t work again until he got back to his dad’s house on Grevillea Street.
In March, Gary Anthony Shover, who is 27 years old, admitted to being an accessory after the fact. He got a year in county jail and then had to be on probation for a year. At first, the older brother was also charged with Briones’ murder and the lying-in-wait enhancement, but in 2022, that charge was dropped.
A report from City News Service says that the elder Shover finally admitted to covering up the crime but not the real one. A neighbor said she saw police dig up clothes and blankets from holes in their backyard. This was evidence that was used to charge both of them.
The younger brother chose to go to trial for 6 days instead of taking the plea deal. It took the jurors in Riverside County more than a day to decide what would happen to him.
California doesn’t have the death penalty, so when he is sentenced on Oct. 25, he will have to serve his whole life in prison without the chance of parole.
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