Two Santa Cruz County gang members have been convicted seven years after a deadly shooting in Watsonville where a four-year-old was killed.
Closing the book on a complicated double murder case, Marcos Robles and Brandon Ruiz-Martin, members of the Norteno gang, pleaded guilty on Thursday, the Santa Cruz County District Attorney’s Office reported.
Robles will be sentenced to 100 years to life in prison for two counts of first-degree murder, firearm enhancements, gang allegations, felony assault and conspiracy to commit murder while Ruiz-Martin was given a 25 year sentence for two counts of voluntary manslaughter and gang charges.
On Oct. 10, 2014, the men were involved in the murders of Ramon Rendon and four-year-old Jaelyn Zavala in a bloody assault of rival gang members.
During the ambush, Robles shot Rendon 10 times in the back at a Valley Inn Motel. A fellow Norteno affiliate who was also attempting to kill Rendon fired a stray bullet which traveled through a nearby restaurant, striking and killing toddler Zavala.
Robles fled the scene and escaped to Mexico until 2015 when he was subsequently arrested. Robles and Ruiz-Martin are the final two Norteno defendants to be convicted for the murders.
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