The 23-year-old man allegedly plotted for months to kill the 16-year-old after she told police it was his gun they saw her try to throw in a drainage ditch after he allegedly told her to get rid of it and ran away.
Aranda Briones is dead and her alleged killer Owen Skyler Shover will spend the rest of his life behind bars without the possibility of parole, as reported by KESQ.
“He’s a stone-cold killer,” said district attorney Mike Hestrin. “On the day of his conviction, he spoke to his grandfather from jail, wondering whether he should ‘get a trophy’ for being a convicted murderer. He has shown no remorse.”
The jury in Shover’s case deliberated for less than a day in August before returning a guilty verdict for first-degree murder against him for the 2019 shooting death of the 16-year-old Moreno Valley girl because her honesty got him expelled from school.
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The Hesperia native was accused of plotting his revenge against the teen for months after his expulsion, securing a gun, luring her into his car, and then killing her and hiding her body in the San Bernadino Mountains.
“The victim didn’t deserve this. She was just a kid,” Hestrin told City News Service on Friday, as reported by KESQ. “She had her whole life ahead of her. This was a tremendous loss — all because of one person’s choice. It’s truly heartbreaking.”
Shover’s older brother, Gary Anthony Shover, made a plea deal with the District Attorney’s office last March, admitting to being an accessory after the fact. He was sentenced to 12 month’s probation for his involvement.
Owen Skyler Shover, who was also convicted of a special-circumstance allegation of lying in wait, received the life sentence required by state law.
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The Expulsions of Shover & Briones
It started in the fall of 2017 when Briones, who was described in Hestrin’s trial brief as a “trouble” youth with absent parents who lived with her grandfather, decided to skip school and instead hang out in a park with her friends, including Shover.
It was November 7 when a sheriff’s office truant deputy from the school, looking for kids not in attendance, spotted the group in the park and approached them to talk. According to the investigation, Shover was in possession of a small-caliber handgun at the time.
He allegedly tossed the gun to Briones and told her to hide it. She purportedly threw it into a nearby drainage canal, but was spotted doing so by the deputy, who later detained her and questioned her about the incident with school administrators.
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Briones reportedly revealed that the gun had been Shover’s, which ultimately led to both of their expulsions in February 2018.
At this point, Shover moved back to Hesperia where his father lived, while Briones stayed in Moreno Valley, with both then-teens enrolling in continuation schools in their respective communities. But, as the prosecutor said in court, Shover never got over what he saw as Briones’ betrayal.
Tracking Snapchat, Facebook, and other messaging social media communications, investigators revealed in trial that Shover spent the months from November 2018 to January 2019 attempting and ultimately securing a new firearm.
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The Death of Briones
On January 12, 2019, shortly after obtaining the firearm, Shover allegedly texted Briones to invite her to go with him to make drug deals and “rob drug dealers,” according to the legal briefs.
They met up the following day at approximately 5 p.m., with two of Briones’ friends witnessing her get into his car as they headed for Box Springs Mountain. It was the last time Briones would be seen alive.
The teen did post several pictures to her own socials within the first hour after getting into Shover’s vehicle, expressing how excited she was to be hanging with her “homie.” Using her cell phone data, and security cameras, deputies were able to track the pair’s movements around Box Springs Mountain.
Shortly before 6 p.m., the vehicle they were in was heading toward a mobile home park, per police. It was at this time that Shover purportedly contacted his brother through Facebook, according to investigators, and told him, “Be ready for tonight. Get shovels and lighter fluid ready.”
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According to the prosecutors’ narrative of that fateful day, Shover picked up his brother at the mobile home park before they made their way into the mountains. Shover shut off his cell phone along the way, not turning it back on until he was back at his father’s house, per police.
Hestrin detailed to the jury the following weeks, as Briones’ family filed police reports that she was missing and they suspected foul play. As detectives investigated, the legal brief states they found “extensive and compelling evidence that the defendant meticulously planned and carried out the murder of Aranda.”
Some of that evidence included a blood detector revealing the “presence of a significant amount of blood that had pooled toward the bottom of the trunk, underneath the carpeting” when they investigated Shover’s vehicle. DNA from the vehicle was matched to Briones.
Despite Shover’s conviction and sentence, neither law enforcement nor volunteers have been able to find any trace of Briones after extensive searching of the mountainous area they believe her remains were disposed.
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