The California Supreme Court refused Wednesday to review the case of a San Pedro man who was convicted of murdering his estranged wife, whose body was dumped along the 710 Freeway in Long Beach nearly two decades ago.<\/p>\n
Carl Mayes, now 48, is serving a state prison term of just over 41 years to life<\/a> stemming from his April 2023 conviction for the July 2006 shooting death<\/a> of Tyquesha Myers, along with possession of a firearm by a felon.<\/p>\n Deputy District Attorney Karen Brako told jurors during the trial that the 20-year-old woman \u2014 who was believed to have been dumped \u201cin the hours of darkness\u201d \u2014 was found dead July 15, 2006, just north of the Pacific Coast Highway exit along the 710 Freeway. She had been shot in the head.<\/p>\n The prosecutor said in her closing argument that the victim\u2019s mother last saw Myers alive after leaving her at a barbershop in Gardena where Mayes worked, and noted that a co-worker at the barbershop subsequently told police that Mayes told him he \u201cput the gun to her head to scare her\u201d and the \u201cgun went off.\u201d The man said Mayes told him the woman\u2019s body was in the trunk of his car and he should report that she had walked away from the barbershop if anyone asked, according to the prosecutor.<\/p>\n A Spider-Man blanket collected from the barbershop was found to have bloodstains that were consistent with the DNA profile of Myers, who had been married to the defendant for just a few months, Brako added.<\/p>\n Mayes\u2019 trial attorney, Adam Koppekin, questioned the credibility of the prosecution\u2019s key witness, calling him an \u201copportunist\u201d who offered his account of Mayes\u2019 alleged confession only after he was behind bars himself in an unrelated case and saying he has \u201czero credibility.\u201d<\/p>\n Mayes\u2019 lawyer also challenged the prosecution\u2019s contention that the woman was shot in the back of the barbershop, and said Long Beach police had \u201cdropped the ball again and again\u201d on the case.<\/p>\n Koppekin urged the jury to acquit his client of both charges.<\/p>\n Mayes has remained behind bars since his September 2019 arrest following a renewed investigation by Long Beach police detectives.<\/p>\n In January, a three-justice panel from California\u2019s 2nd District Court of Appeal upheld his conviction and rejected the defense\u2019s claim that there were errors in his trial.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The California Supreme Court refused Wednesday to review the case of a San Pedro man who was convicted…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":236530,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[1312,138,134,131,133,132,100],"class_list":["post-236529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-courts","tag-crime-and-public-safety","tag-homicide","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236529","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=236529"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236529\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/236530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}