JLWOP Inmate Maksim Isayev
In 2007, Maksim Isayev, then 17, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole; Gennadiy Sevchuk, then 28, was sentenced to 15 years to life; and Mariya Stepanov, then 19, was sentenced to 15 years to life for their participation in the 2006 murder of Dmitriy Paskar.
Isayev admitted to pumping two rounds from a shotgun into Paskar hitting him in the neck and chest. The prosecution said Stepanov planned the revenge killing of Paskar when she was 18, after the man got her drunk, had sex with her and bragged about it. She texted Paskar urging him to meet her at a park in a quiet residential neighborhood.
Isayev , Stepanov’s current boyfriend, drove to the park with a shotgun in his Mazda trunk, walked up to the couple, told Stepanov to step aside, then shot gunned Paskar to death. Investigator traced text messages that revealed how the three defendants set up and carried out this cold-blooded murder.
JLWOP Inmate Doshmen Johnson
Johnson was sentenced to consecutive sentences of life without possibility of parole for the first-degree murder of Perry Steele, 10 years for carrying out the shooting that killed the 27-year-old victim on behalf of the North Highlands-based “TNA” gang, plus 25 years for using a gun.
Sacramento Superior Court Judge Steve White handed down the sentence, calling Johnson’s actions “cold blooded.”Other than the glorification of his gang, White said, “There appears to be no other purpose to the killing.” City police detectives testified Johnson is a member of TNA and that he sought to kill Steele – a rival Del Paso Heights Blood – on the victim’s turf to bring glory to his gang.
Steel died in May 2008, one month after being shot in his car while at a stoplight at the intersection of Del Paso and Marysville boulevards. Steele’s older sister said her baby brother suffered a “slow and extremely painful death,” losing all his limbs before finally succumbing to his injuries.
Byline Kim Minugh of the Sacramento Bee
JLWOP Inmate Darious Mays
Darious Mays’ was convicted of first-degree murder with a lying-in-wait special circumstance and personal firearm discharge enhancement in the killing of Sheppard Scott while Scott and his girlfriend were waiting in their car to order food at a Jack in the Box drive-through.
Scott told his girlfriend one of two guys standing in front of an adjacent AM/PM mini mart had insulted him with a racial slur when they drove in. Scott walked over and confronted the two men. As Scott walked back to his car, his girlfriend saw one of the men, wearing an orange Orioles jacket, pass something to the other man who was dressed in a hooded gray sweatshirt. After the couple collected their ordered food and drove to the exit, someone yelled; “Hey, homie.” The man in the gray sweatshirt walked toward them as Scott stopped his car, telling him he wished to apologize. The man extended his hand as if to shake hands. When Scott did the same, the man pulled a gun and shot Scott six times at close range, killing him.
JLWOP Inmates Daniel Russell and Calvin Pearson
16-year-old Daniel Russell and 16-year-old Calvin Pearson broke into the home of Marie Oliver, a 90-year-old great grandmother, and beat her to death in April of 2006. After using her cane and their fists to break her nose, cheekbone, eye socket, and two of her ribs, they stole from her.
What makes this gruesome, horrific crime even more shocking is an interrogation video of them taken three days after the brutal murder that shows them sharing a pizza and drinking soda while discussing how they attacked the woman. In the video, the teen killers laugh about the killing, show no remorse and remark how they should have “been more careful.” They ask each other about whether the other snitched and speculate about how much time they would get for the killing. “Man, we’re doin’ at least a year, knock on wood we don’t.” one of the teen killers opined.
They were each sentenced for first-degree murder with special circumstance allegations of robbery and burglary and each received life in prison with no chance of parole.
JLWOP Inmate Robert Crisler
On August 5, 2004 Mario Vidal Jr. had been visiting friends and as he walked out of their house, he was confronted by six gang members who began to taunt him. He turned to walk away from the group and was shot in the back by gang member Robert Crisler. Although Mario was not a gang member himself, he was an innocent victim in gang dispute between surenos and nortenos. Crisler was sentenced to lwop for the murder and also sentenced to 25 years to life for personal use of firearm and special circumstance of committing crime to further gang activity.
JLWOP Inmate Dwayne DeLuna
DeLuna and two co-defendants robbed Bistro Pete’s restaurant on October 23, 1994 and in the course of the robbery, DeLuna shot and killed one of the managers, David Lamburth. DeLuna argued at trial that the shooting was accidental, but witnesses testified that Lamburth was shot while he had his hands up, forced into a crouching position, and shot by DeLuna execution style.
DeLuna was seventeen at the time of robbery and murder and was sentenced to lwop plus 4 years on October 11, 1996.
JLWOP Inmate Frank Osorio
Osorio shot and killed his mother Luz Maria Osorio as she was sleeping on November 21, 1995. After he shot his mother behind the ear, he robbed her of a personal pouch she wore attached to an inside dress strap. Osorio’s father had recently died and his mother had collected $30,000.in insurance proceeds and kept her cash and credit cards in the pouch. There was trial testimony about the disrespect Osorio showed toward his mother and his out of control conduct. Seventeen year old Osorio fancied himself as a sniper and had business cards printed calling himself a sniper. He was convicted of murder with personal use of firearm finding and of robbery on April 22, 1997. Acquaintances from his community who know this teen killer have contacted NOVJL expressing grave concern over legislation in California that could possibly offer this offender release some day. They told us they believe they would be in very real danger if this legislation were to pass.
JLWOP Inmate Jiles Wallace
Wallace had been a member of the East Side Piru gang since he was fourteen. Wallace was one of five defendants who were charged with murder, robbery and burglary. Of the five defendants, two were considered more culpable by prosecutors than the others as one individual had planned the crime spree and set it in motion, and one had been the actual shooter of victim Scott Lewis. The three co-defendants that the district attorney considered less culpable, including Wallace, were given opportunities to plead to voluntary manslaughter and lesser sentences in exchange for testimony against the two defendants. Two co-defendants accepted the plea bargain. Wallace waived his right to a jury in favor of a court trial, but despite on the record admonitions of sentence exposure, Wallace refused to testify against the two defendants who went to jury trial.
After hearing evidence that at time of the burglary and robbery, Wallace had provided gun to one of the co-defendants, that he himself was armed and that he brandished weapon at surviving victim, the court found him guilty of felony murder of victim Scott Lewis, burglary and robbery and sentenced him to lwop plus four years on July 25, 1997.
JLWOP Inmate Edward Sanchez
On January 24, 1994 Sanchez and two fellow gang members in the 47th Street gang went to Day’s Market to steal beer. One of the gang members went inside, grabbed two twelve packs of beer, and ran out of the store with a clerk chasing him. Sanchez, who had waited outside, fired and fatally shot the store clerk Jitendra Kumar. Sanchez then fired at clerk Kishor Patel. In the gunfight, the stolen beer was dropped, so the trio of gang members went to a second store a few hours later to steal more beer. When the clerk at the second store followed them outside to try to get their license plate number, Sanchez fired at clerk Victor Bargas. Sanchez was convicted of murder, two counts of attempted murder of Patel and Bargas, and robbery. As Sanchez had pled not guilty by reason of insanity, the jury after finding him guilty made a finding that he was sane at the time of his crimes’ He was sentenced to lwop on May 19, 1997.
JLWOP Inmate Ellis Curtis
The victim, 23-year-old Richard Harper was found dead with a shotgun wound to the back of his head. Ellis Curtis was identified as being in a group of people who planned to “jack” a neighbor to get $150.00 to redeem a towed car belonging to one of the group. Curtis was convicted of being the actual shooter of victim Harper and robbing Harper of his car.on September 21, 1993.
Ellis was seventeen when he committed the crimes and was sentenced on August 4, 1995 to lwop after being convicted of murder and robbery.
JLWOP Inmate Robert Drayton
Drayton and other teenagers had set up an encampment of tents by the river in Sacramento where they had hung out to drink and party in the days preceding the murder of Caecile Lenker on September 28, 1995. The party became violent when Drayton badly beat and raped Lenker. After being hit several times on the head and body by heavy rocks, Caecile tried to escape by jumping in the river. Drayton continued to throw rocks at her as she desperately screamed for help. He then went out into the water and pushed the struggling girl under. A witness said that it appeared that she had died because her body quit thrashing, went limp and disappeared under the river’s surface, but she reemerged and again started screaming for help. Drayton then held her under water until she drowned, then drug her lifeless body back to shore and robbed her of the multiple rings she was wearing.
Drayton was sentenced to lwop in June of 1996 after the jury found him guilty of murder and robbery.
JLWOP Inmate Issach Ready
Ready was a member of the East Side gang and went to a party looking for rival gang members of the Shooting Diamond Boys gang. On October 1, 1994, he used a rifle to shoot and kill two males at the party, victims Manuel Hernandez and Jason Hatch. He was sentenced to lwop on July 23, 1996 for the two murders.
JLWOP Inmate Raymond Muhammad Ward
Raymond Muhammad Ward was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole on July 21, 1995, for murdering a 19-year-old motorist at a busy Sacramento intersection for the victim’s customized Oldsmobile with gold-colored wheels.
The Sacramento Bee reported that Judge Richard H. Gilmore told Ward “there was virtually nothing of redeeming value” in his short life, which was filled with more crime then the lives of other criminals twice his age. This is one of those cases where words fail to describe the callousness of the crime. To kill someone to get their wheels is beyond comprehension,” Gilmour said.
Ward, who was prosecuted as an adult, was 17 on Oct. 14, 1993, when he walked up to a 1984 Oldsmobile at a red light shortly after 11 a.m. Arthur Gonzalez was waiting for the light to change on his way to work at an automotive shop. Numerous witnesses saw Ward walk up to Gonzalez, shoot him in the head, and then dump his body in the busy intersection as he drove off.
JLWOP Inmate Deondre Terrell Hudson
Deondre Terrell Hudson was sixteen when he murdered his girlfriend, 18-year-old Quinnisha R. Thomas and her unborn fetus on Jan. 13, 2003.
The Sacramento Bee reported that Sacramento Superior Court Judge James L. Long, called the killing “coldblooded,” and sentenced Hudson to life without possibility of parole on June 22, 2004. Hudson was convicted on two charges of murder of using a gun to kill Thomas, who was eight months pregnant with his daughter. He shot her execution-style as she walked through an opening in a fence behind a grocery store.
JLWOP Inmates Reginald Bunn and Antonio Minor
Bunn and Minor lured victim Gamaliel Torres to a park on a pretense of buying marijuana from him. When the victim arrived, they approached his vehicle and shot him before he even turned off his car engine or unhooked his seat belt, then reached in and stole $900.00 worth of marijuana, his cell phone, and a necklace he was wearing. Bunn used the .357 pistol and Minor used the shotgun to kill nineteen-year-old victim Gamaliel Torres.
Bunn and Minor were sentenced to LWOP for the murder plus a 25 year to life sentence for the enhancement of personal use of firearm and the robbery. Although both defendants at trial tried to blame each other or other co-defendants, each were found with weapons at their feet, the victim’s blood on themselves and their clothes, and gun residue tests were positive for each of them.
JLWOP Inmate Daniel Perez
Perez was an active gang member when he robbed and shot Clifford Owens twice in the head on April 26, 2005. Victim Owens was a marijuana dealer who resisted being robbed of marijuana by Perez, and was fatally shot in the drug heist. On Perez was sentenced to LWOP plus 25 years to life. There were 3 other co-defendants, but Perez was the actual shooter.
JLWOP Inmate Miguel Soto Enriquez, Jr
Miguel Soto Enriquez, Jr was a sixteen-year-old member of the Oak Park Bloods gang when he shot two young men. This gang shooting occurred on June 11, 2006 at a busy shopping plaza in downtown Sacramento during daylight hours, and was directed at young people who were hanging out at the downtown plaza but were not gang members. The murder victim was visiting from Chicago, and was shopping and hanging out with his friends when SotoEnriquez and his fellow gang members approached them. There were challenges to fight which escalated when SotoEnriquez pulled out a gun and began firing, killing Erick Young and seriously wounding Malcolm Brewer
After the shooting, he fled to his native country of Guatemala where he was arrested April 12, 2007 by Interpol and Guatemalan police officers, and subsequently returned to California to stand trial.
On May 30, 2008, SotoEnriquez was sentenced to LWOP plus 50 years to life for the murder of Erick Young Jr., the attempted murder of Malcolm Brewer. and for inflicting great bodily injury on Brewer. The jury found true the special circumstance charge that the crime was committed for the benefit of a street gang.
JLWOP Inmate Daniel Zhuk
Zhuk, a seventeen-year-old Russian immigrant, was convicted of the January 20, 2000 murder of 25-year-old Cindy Chung during an attempted carjacking and robbery, and of the attempted murder of her father Han Chung. During the investigation of Cindy Chung’s murder, the investigators discovered that the defendant had also committed two other separate attempted carjackings of victims Ingrid Wolbet and Karen Wood. Zhuk was also convicted of those two attempted carjackings and robberies and of assault with a firearm in each incident.
Evidence disclosed that Zhuk was targeting drivers of BMW and Mercedes vehicles to sell them to a Russian gang who would buy the luxury cars for $4,000.00. Zhuk was also involved in the staging of auto accidents so that passengers could get injured and put in insurance claims for the injuries in these staged collisions.
Although Zhuk did not himself shoot Cindy, the Court sentenced him to LWOP under the felony murder rule because the judge found him to be the dominant person in the planning of the crimes, found that he provided the weapon and bullets used, and told his co-defendant to carry out the crimes.
JLWOP Inmate Johnny Mack Cotton
A jury found defendant Johnny Mack Cotton guilty of the April 22, 2006 murder of Byron Walker. The trial court sentenced defendant to life without the possibility of parole plus 25 years for the murder, personal use of a firearm enhancement, and attempted robbery. The defendant approached the victim, told the victim to give him his money, and when the victim put his hands up, Cotton shot him. The killing occurred near a light rail stop in Sacramento and was captured on video.
JLWOP Inmate Thomas Hernandez
Thomas Hernandez and two co-defendants who were fellow gang members killed James Daniel Melendez Jr. on February 21, 1999. T he victim was not a gang member, but was shot as he was leaving a party, simply because he was on a street wearing a red shirt, the gang color of the teen killer’s rival gang. Shortly thereafter, the teen killers pulled next to a car being occupied by four young men, two of whom had their hair tied in a pony tail which the teen killers associated with their rival gang. As the driver responded to them asking for traffic directions, Hernandez opened fire, shooting and seriously wounding two of the occupants. Hernandez was also convicted of the attempted murder of victims Carlos Romero, Michael Ortiz, David Cross, and Phillip Moore.
JLWOP Inmate Jimmy Siackasorn
Jimmy Siackasorn was convicted of first-degree murder of Sacramento County Sheriff Deputy Vu Nguyen. A jury also found two special circumstances true — namely, that Siackasorn intended to kill a peace officer in the performance of his duty, and that he intended to use a gun. Siackasorn was sentenced to lwop plus 25 years on June 18, 2010. He had been arrested 26 times since the age of 12.
Siackasorn was 16 when he shot Deputy Nguyen in the neck after Nguyen and his gang task force partner made a routine check in a gang-neighborhood. His partner found him lying mortally wounded on top of a chicken coop after a foot chase which commenced when Siackasorn ran and jumped over a fence after seeing the deputies. Nguyen followed him over the fence, and his partner found Nguyen in the back yard of a home, with a gunshot wound to the neck.
Sacramento Bee reporter Andy Furillo reported that Sacramento Superior Court Judge Cheryl Chun Meegan said Siackasorn “rejected all of the interventions” of the local juvenile justice system that had housed him for 863 days in the five years before he shot and killed Deputy Vu Nguyen on Dec. 19, 2007.
Meegan said Siackasorn repeatedly expressed his “utter disdain, his animosity, his hatred toward any authority figure.” She said he “ambushed” Nguyen, “executed” him in the fence-hopping chase that ended on top of a chicken coop in a rough Southside neighborhood, where he finally got his chance to fulfill years of threats he’d been making about wanting to kill a cop.
“It’s also my observation that as an additional affront and insult to all of us, the defendant has shown no remorse,” the judge said. “I do not know what is in his heart, but I know what I have seen … . He is proud of what he’s done. He has bragged and he has gloated.”
