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Robbery-murder of marijuana dispensary worker in OC gets pair life sentences without parole

December 13, 2024

Two men who helped carry out the 2019 slaying of a marijuana dispensary worker who was run off the road and shot to death on the edge of the Santa Ana College campus while transporting tens of thousands of dollars in cash were sentenced Friday, Dec. 13, to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

John Taylor — who prosecutors said was the shooter — and Ryan Jones — the accused driver — were convicted earlier this year of special circumstances murder for the killing of 29-year-old Osvaldo Garcia during a robbery on Sept. 16, 2019.

A third man — Antonio Lamont Triplett — was convicted of the same charge in an earlier trial in which prosecutors referred to him as a “bag man” who ran off with Garcia’s backpack and the dispensary money. Triplett was previously sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.

Orange County Superior Court Judge Kimberly Menninger during the sentencing hearing said the robbers were driven by greed and had no reason to kill anyone. The judge noted that Garcia was remembered by those who knew him as a hard-working young man with close family, a dedicated girlfriend and his “whole future ahead of him.”

“The reality is they wanted the money,” the judge said. “This is a really easy thing to do without killing anyone.”

A contact with ties to the South Los Angeles dispensary had tipped the robbers that Garcia would be picking up and transporting the cash. He left the dispensary around 11 p.m. on Sept. 15 with a backpack filled with tens of thousands of dollars in cash and plans to meet his girlfriend at an In-N-Out in Santa Ana.

Another vehicle — which prosecutors allege was driven by Jones — forced Garcia’s car off the roadway near the Bristol and 17th streets intersection. The force of the collision drove Garcia’s vehicle over a sidewalk and onto a raised embankment and hedges at Santa Ana College.

Garcia’s girlfriend — who was on the phone with him at the time of the collision — heard him exclaim “They are shooting at me, help me!”

Campus security footage captured two men — identified by prosecutors as Taylor and Triplett — running up to Garcia’s car. One of the men — prosecutors say Taylor — is seen firing multiple gunshots. Garcia managed to crawl out of a passenger window before being pistol-whipped, beaten and shot five times.

During the recent trial, Senior Deputy District Attorney Anna McIntire described Garcia’s killing as an “execution.”

Triplett ran off with Garcia’s backpack, cutting through the campus and a nearby shopping center. Taylor got back into the car that had run Garcia off the road, prosecutors said, and he and Jones left the area.

Garcia’s girlfriend contacted police, having overheard the confrontation over the phone and worrying Garcia had been kidnapped. Officers realized that Garcia’s girlfriend had never ended the call and that Garcia’s phone had been stolen by one of his attackers.

Aided by a police helicopter, officers used Garcia’s phone to track the men to Corona, then along several Los Angeles-area freeways to a parking lot in Carson. Two vehicles were stopped by police near that parking lot in Carson, while a third vehicle was followed by officers to Long Beach. Triplett, Taylor and Jones — as well as a woman who worked at the same dispensary as Garcia — were taken into custody that night.

Cell phone data showed that Jones had been near the dispensary earlier that night. It also showed that Jones, Triplett and Taylor were in Santa Ana at the time of the robbery and killing. Blood on Triplett’s shoes also tied him to Garcia.

During their trial, defense attorneys representing Jones and Taylor denied that they played a direct role in Garcia’s killing.

Taylor testified that he was tricked into allowing other men to use his car that night and was high on drugs at the time of the shooting. Taylor said the actual shooter was a friend with the nickname “Hustle,” who was himself shot and killed in St. Louis shortly after Garcia’s slaying. Taylor went along thinking he was going to buy some cheap pot, his attorney argued, not take part in a killing.

Jones’ attorney described the evidence against both men as circumstantial, arguing that there was no way to know what Jones knew or what his role was during the robbery.

At the end of the sentencing hearing, Judge Menninger noted that, based on the verdict, jurors didn’t believe the claims of someone else carrying out the killing.

“There is no one else to blame for this moment but yourselves,” the judge told Jones and Taylor.

Orange County Register

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Robbery-murder of marijuana dispensary worker in OC gets pair life sentences without parole

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