{"id":209326,"date":"2026-03-07T18:42:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-07T18:42:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/209326\/"},"modified":"2026-03-07T18:42:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-07T18:42:09","slug":"three-men-sentenced-to-life-without-parole-for-gang-related-sd-murders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/209326\/","title":{"rendered":"Three men sentenced to life without parole for gang-related SD murders"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Superior<\/a>The downtown San Diego Superior Court. (File photo by Chris Stone\/Times of San Diego)<\/p>\n

Three men convicted for their roles in a string of gang-related killings across San Diego were each sentenced Friday to life in prison without the possibility of parole.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors allege the three men, along with several others who have already pleaded guilty to various charges and been sentenced, were involved in a conspiracy to attack perceived gang rivals, which led to a spate of shootings in 2019 and 2020.<\/p>\n

Among the killings that prosecutors say were committed by the defendants and their co-conspirators include the July 12, 2019 shooting of 20- year-old Joaquin Ruiz in Bay Terraces; the Aug. 1, 2019, shooting of 57-year- old Marco Magana in Mountain View; the Feb. 8, 2020 shooting of 19-year-old Leah Posey in Southcrest; and the May 15, 2020 shooting of 27-year-old Juan Andres Galvan in Shelltown.<\/p>\n

Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Fraser<\/a> said that despite a trial that spanned nearly three months, it remained unclear why those specific victims were targeted.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese were people that had no quarrel with the defendants,\u201d the judge said. \u201cWe can\u2019t really understand why they chose to kill these individuals. Most of the time, we have a very clear motive that\u2019s just obvious. We don\u2019t have that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sentenced Friday were Ismael Betancourt, 25, and brothers Ethan Apan, 33, and Kristian Apan, 32.<\/p>\n

Jurors returned guilty verdicts against the Apan brothers for Ruiz\u2019s murder and Ethan Apan and Betancourt for Magana\u2019s murder.<\/p>\n

Guilty verdicts were also returned for attempted murder counts connected to two shootings in July of 2019 and January of 2020 that left two men wounded.<\/p>\n

Jurors deadlocked on counts related to Posey\u2019s death, a shooting which also allegedly left a teenage boy wounded. Prosecutors indicated Friday that they would seek another hearing related to those counts, indicating a possible re-trial in connection with her slaying.<\/p>\n

The men were not charged with Galvan\u2019s killing, but the shooting was referenced in a grand jury indictment that alleged Galvan was killed by one or more of the defendants or unidentified co-conspirators.<\/p>\n

Along with the life without parole terms imposed for the murder counts, each man received additional, consecutive sentences of over 100 years to life in prison for conspiracy to commit murder, attempted murder, and other crimes.<\/p>\n

\u2013City News Service<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The downtown San Diego Superior Court. (File photo by Chris Stone\/Times of San Diego) Three men convicted for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":50979,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[27691,895,8947,74,76,75,2897],"class_list":["post-209326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-gang-related","tag-men","tag-murders","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-sentencing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=209326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209326\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=209326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=209326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=209326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}