Banning Jury Convicts Woman In Marijuana Dealer's Death

BANNING, CA — A 24-year-old woman who joined two young men in robbing and killing a marijuana dealer at a Riverside apartment complex was convicted Thursday of first-degree murder and other charges.

A Banning jury on Thursday deliberated only a few hours before finding Merlin Perales Ortiz of Yucca Valley guilty in the 2020 slaying of 20-year- old Wesley Flores Miranda, a Honduran national. Along with murder, jurors convicted Ortiz of conspiracy and a special-circumstance allegation of killing in the course of a robbery.

Riverside County Superior Court Judge Jonathan Mendoza scheduled a sentencing hearing for Nov. 18 at the Banning Justice Center. The defendant is expected to receive life in prison without the possibility of parole.

She's being held without bail at the nearby Smith Correctional Facility.

Ortiz's co-defendants, Isaiah Israel Rodriguez and Cristian Alejandro Runkle, now both 23, pleaded guilty in October 2021 to second-degree murder. In addition to murder, Rodriguez admitted a sentence-enhancing gun use allegation. He was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. Runkle was sentenced to 15 years to life.

The holdup occurred on the night of Nov. 8, 2020, at an apartment leased by Runkle's girlfriend, identified only as "Star," in the 5200 block of El Cerrito Drive in the Canyon Crest neighborhood of south Riverside, according to a trial brief filed by the District Attorney's Office.

Prosecutors said Ortiz and her co-defendants were affiliated with a decades-old San Bernardino street gang and had schemed to rob "weed" dealers throughout the region for months.

The trio obtained Miranda's contact information via social media and arranged to meet him at Star's residence, where she fell asleep in her bedroom "because she had been drinking and doing drugs during the day," court papers stated.

Ortiz was the principal planner in the holdup, directing Rodriguez to act as the gunman, prosecutors said.

Security surveillance video cameras around the apartment complex captured nearly the entire sequence of events that night.

Videos showed the victim emerging from his car, carrying a backpack, then proceeding to the apartment, where Ortiz met him at the door. After Miranda stepped inside -- out of the cameras' view -- investigators said he was confronted by Runkle and Rodriguez, and the latter brandished a Glock 9mm semiautomatic handgun at him.

Ortiz ordered the young man in Spanish to give up his backpack, but he refused, leading to a struggle in which he was fatally shot in the upper body just outside the doorway, according to the prosecution.

The trio fled, with the backpack, leaving the now-awakened Star to deal with the dead man and Riverside police officers who soon converged on the apartment complex, the brief said.

Four weeks of collecting evidence culminated in detectives identifying the defendants, all of whom were taken into custody without incident in San Bernardino County.

Ortiz had no documented prior felony or misdemeanor convictions.