Was it an illicit business deal gone wrong or a planned violent culmination of a feud over unpaid debts and control of a lucrative drug-trafficking operation? An Orange County jury will soon have to decide what led to three men being killed and burned in an SUV in a suburban Orange neighborhood and a fourth shot to death on a drive to Fontana.
Jury deliberations will soon begin in the trial of Raul Gastellum Flores, the only suspect to face trial thus far for his role in an alleged sprawling murder plot that resulted in the 2015 killings of brothers Edgar Berrelleza-Soto, 26, and Joel Mauricio Berrelleza, 35, both of Orange, along with two other men.
Prosecutors allege that Flores, now 33, was one of five men from the Phoenix area who, along with a man from Mexico with alleged ties to the Sinaloa Cartel, are suspected of taking part in the four slayings.
Deputy District Attorney Harris Siddiq alleged that Rosario Roman-Lopez — a former partner of the Berrelleza brothers in a cross-border drug smuggling operation — promised to pay Flores $2,000 to take part in a plot to kidnap and kill the brothers. Roman-Lopez was allegedly angry at the brothers failing to pay him back for hiring a coyote.
Flores admitted to being part of a crew that ambushed the Berrelleza brothers and two other victims — 19-year-old Antonio Medina of Glendale, Ariz., and 20-year-old Fernando Meza, of Phoenix, according to the prosecutor. Flores is not accused of firing any weapons, but prosecutors allege he was part of a conspiracy to kidnap and kill the victims.
Berrelleza-Soto, Medina and Meza were shot and their bodies set aflame while they sat in a GMC SUV in an Orange neighborhood. Flores, in an interview with detectives, admitted to dousing their bodies with gasoline and then lighting them on fire with a cigarette lighter.
A short time later, members of the same crew kidnapped Joel Berrelleza and shot him three times point blank, killing him, while they were driving toward…
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