GUILTY VA - Jaime Cruz-Avila, 24, beaten to death, burned, Henrico, 5 Feb 2014

redsky said:

I live in the area - I was under the impression from the last news I saw that police had been called to his home due to a "suspicious situation" before he was missing. I will try and find an article to back that up. So from that I am guessing that was when he was last seen.

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Earlier that day Henrico Police responded to Cruz-Avila’s home along the 2500 block of Dickens Glen Court for a suspicious situation.

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On Friday, June 19, Juan Carlos Ayala Rivas, 30, who was originally from El Salvador, was convicted of second degree murder, arson and grand larceny in the death of Jaime Cruz-Avila, 24, also of Henrico, in February 2014.

Rivas was originally charged with first degree murder and the two other felonies, but at the end of a three-day trial, the jury found him guilty of the lesser murder charge. The jury recommended 30 years for all three charges. Sentencing is expected later this year.

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An El Salvador native was sentenced to 30 years in prison Wednesday for fatally beating and then setting on fire his former good friend...

The prosecution’s theory of the case — supported by witness statements, cellphone records and GPS tracking of the defendant’s movements — was that Ayala Rivas, an illegal immigrant from El Salvador, killed his onetime friend in a dispute over $600 that Ayala Rivas believed he was owed for a car he sold to the victim that later broke down.

The defendant, who at the time was unemployed, was in desperate need of cash to catch up on child support payments owed to his estranged wife, about $900. Ayala Rivas testified in June that his wife wouldn’t allow him to see his daughter unless he paid to help support her.

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