GUILTY CA - Sammantha Salas, 16, shot to death, Monrovia, 26 Jan 2008

BURBANK - Emotions boiled over in a courtroom Tuesday as a jury found Monrovia cousins Nickelis and Rayshawn Blackwell guilty of gunning down 16-year-old Sammantha Salas in a hail of machine gun fire two years ago.

http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/ci_15508942?source=rss_viewed

(This was an especially vicious crime. They gunned down a 16-year old girl who was merely walking to the store, because she was Latina and they were black.)

from the link above:

The cousins stared straight ahead as the verdicts were read. But Nickelis Blackwell unleashed a tirade of expletives as deputies led him away in handcuffs.

Rayshawn Blackwell looked back into the audience, smiled and said, "It's all right. We'll be back."

Nickelis' attorney, Thomas White, said his client was upset at the prospect of spending the rest of his life in prison.

"They're looking at several hundred years, and no one on this earth will be alive to see them get out of custody," said Geoffrey Pope, Rayshawn Blackwell's attorney.

Salas was gunned down as she walked with two friends in the 2500 block of Peck Road in an unincorporated county area near Monrovia on Jan. 26, 2008. One of her friends, a teenage girl, was severely wounded but recovered. A second friend ran away and escaped injury.

JoeFromLB said:

from the link above:
Rayshawn Blackwell looked back into the audience, smiled and said, "It's all right. We'll be back."

Click to expand...

Clearly humbled by the experience.

Sure, dude. We'll be waiting!

JoeFromLB said:

Nickelis' attorney, Thomas White, said his client was upset at the prospect of spending the rest of his life in prison.

"They're looking at several hundred years, and no one on this earth will be alive to see them get out of custody," said Geoffrey Pope, Rayshawn Blackwell's attorney.

Click to expand...

Ya do the crime, ya do the time!!

What I don't understand is how someone can get 11 years for killing a toddler while someone else gets life for killing a 16 year old. Shouldn't both crimes have the same weight???

http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/ci_8114931

(published January 29, 2008)

Sammantha Salas loved Jamba Juice smoothies, the color blue and her camera phone.

The 16-year-old Alhambra High School sophomore was "a gadget freak," who loved her computer, Apple Bottom brand jeans, the Dodgers and drawing. She often baby-sat, and she dreamed of attending USC.

By all the accounts from her family and those closest to her, Sammantha was a typical American teen - which makes her brutal death at the hands of gang members Saturday all the more heartbreaking and incomprehensible, they said Tuesday.

"I was shocked - I couldn't believe something like that happened," said her friend Wendy Crespo, 15, who had known Sammantha since they attended Emery Park Elementary School, not far from their high school.

"She was great, and I loved her," said 16-year-old Alhambra High sophomore Jessica Mena, one of her closest friends. "She was a really great person and was very funny."

Right up until the moment the shots were fired, everything about Sammantha's life seemed normal. Earlier in the day, she had gone to Covina and celebrated at her uncle's 50th birthday party. Back at home, at about 8:30 p.m., Sammantha and a 16-year-old friend who lived in the same apartment building in the 2500 block of Peck Road strolled to a dairy across the street for some beverages.

Minutes later, Sammantha was gasping for breath in her father's arms. Her friend lay wounded beside her.

she was so pretty

the cousins' behaviour in court reveals their character

no hope for them to rehabilitate IMO

Killers of Sammantha Salas denied appeal

http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/news/ci_20128156/killers-sammantha-salas-denied-appeal