On Jan. 13, 2019, 18-year-old Owen Skyler Shover texted a former Moreno Valley High classmate, 16-year-old Aranda Briones, and asked her if she had plans for that day.
“How illegal is it?” Briones responded, according to a conversation transcript included in a document filed in Superior Court by the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office.
“If you really down we can rob some dealers,” Shover replied.
At 4:56 p.m. that day, Briones uploaded photos and videos to Snapchat showing her in a Nissan Versa with Shover as she believed they were hunting for drug pushers.
But she had walked into a trap, prosecutors say.
Briones, who documented her almost every move on social media, was never seen or heard from again after that day, the court filing said. Testimony continued at the Riverside County Hall of Justice in Riverside on Monday, Aug. 12, in the trial of Shover, now 23, who has pleaded not guilty to a charge of murder.
More than five years after 16-year-old Moreno Valley resident Aranda Briones disappeared, a friend, Owen Skyler Shover, is on trial in Aug. 2024 and is accused of murdering her. (Courtesy of Riverside County Sheriff’s Department)
District Attorney Mike Hestrin, once one of his office’s top murder prosecutors, is personally prosecuting a case for only the second time since his election in 2015, spokeswoman Amy McKenzie said, taking the reins alongside Managing Deputy District Attorney Ivy Fitzpatrick.
Hestrin on Monday said he will explain his decision to take the case after the verdict is read. Briones’ aunt, 72-year-old Teri Garcia, said before court on Monday that Hestrin has not discussed with the family why the boss is standing before a judge and jury.
“I’m all for it,” Garcia said, “if he can get Aranda’s justice.”
Riverside County District Attorney Mike Hestrin is personally prosecuting the Aug. 2024 murder case against Owen Skyler Shover, who is accused of killing 16-year-old Aranda Briones of Moreno Valley in 2019. (The Press-Enterprise)
The gallery Monday included newly minted attorneys in their first day on the job with the county.
Defense attorney Steve Allen contended in his opening statement that there is not sufficient evidence for jurors to link Shover to Briones’ disappearance and that there is no proof that she is dead.
The DA’s Office, in the court filing laying out its case, contends that the killing happened on Jan. 13, 2019, as a result of an incident 14 months earlier. Briones and Shover were among a group of Moreno Valley High students who gathered at a park after ditching classes. They ran when someone yelled “police.” Shover handed Briones a gun, and they both scattered. A deputy saw Briones toss the gun into a drainage culvert and detained her, the document says.
Briones told the officer that Shover had given her the gun. Both were expelled from school, although neither was charged with a crime. Hestrin told jurors in his opening statement that as a result of this, Briones was afraid of Shover.
“This is a case about a cold-blooded revenge killing of a young girl,” Hestrin told jurors in his opening statement that was posted to YouTube by CourtTV. “It’s also a case about betrayal and the gaining of a young girl’s confidence in order to snuff out her life.”
Shover, according to the document, attempted to buy a gun in the days leading up to Briones’ disappearance. He also created a fake Instagram account and held a “conversation” with that owner, setting up a fake drug deal at Box Springs Mountain near Moreno Valley.
Owen Skyler Shover speaks with his attorneys Steve Allen, center, and Leah Kisner, right inside the Riverside Hall of Justice in Riverside on Monday, Aug. 12, 2024. Shover is on trial for the 2019 slaying of his girlfriend, 16-year-old Aranda Briones of Moreno Valley. Authorities say he lured her into her car with the promise of robbing drug dealers. Instead, prosecutors say, he took her to Box Springs Mountain and shot her. He has pleaded not guilty to murder. (Photo by Will Lester, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin/SCNG)
On the morning of Jan. 13, Shover messaged his brother, Gary Anthony Shover, a resident of Hesperia in San Bernardino County, on Facebook: “Be ready for tonight. Get shovels and lighter fluid ready,” according to a transcript of the conversation taken from Shover’s phone.
Owen Shover then contacted Briones.
“Shover used an elaborate ruse and deception to get 16-year-old Aranda Briones out of her home and into his car,” Hestrin told jurors. “There is no drug deal. There was no one waiting for them in the Box Springs Mountain area. It’s solitary and Mr. Shover took her up there for one reason: We don’t know exactly how, but when he got her up there, he took her life.”
Hestrin said testimony will show that blood found in Shover’s car matched that of Briones.
Sheriff’s Investigator Carlos Mendoza testified Thursday and Monday that cell phone data and surveillance images placed Shover and the Versa on the day Briones disappeared at Box Springs Mountain, then at his parents’ home in Hesperia and then, for about two and a half hours, in the San Bernardino Mountains near Crestline and along Rim of the World Highway south of Lake Arrowhead.
Leah Kisner, Allen’s co-counsel, elicited testimony from Mendoza on Monday that he has worked cases where cell phone tower location data was off by as much as 14 miles.
Landry “Chapo Lee” Briones, father of Aranda Briones, points to a photo of him and his daughter on his shirt after a news conference in Moreno Valley on Feb. 12, 2019, where the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department announced the arrest of two men in her disappearance. (Brian Rokos, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)
Allen said in his opening statement that Briones’ grandparents adopted her at age 3 and placed few restrictions on her. She smoked marijuana, used cocaine and robbed drug dealers, he said. And she did not fear Shover as a result of the gun incident, Allen added.
“The people want you to believe that this incident from over a year ago where both Aranda and Owen were expelled somehow led to this murder that they believe occurred,” Allen said. “But you know what you don’t have is proof of that. There’s no body, there’s no weapon, there’s no evidence that Arana Briones is dead.”
He said the DA’s investigators decided that Shover was responsible and stopped looking for other suspects.
“If Owen were planning this whole thing … do you think he’s going to let Aranda Snapchat pictures in the car with him? It doesn’t make sense. At the end of the trial, the evidence is not going to add up,” Allen said.
Gary Shover, 27, pleaded guilty to accessory after the fact in March and was sentenced to one year of probation.
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