Convicted Serial Robber Found Guilty Of Murder At Seaside Motel

SALINAS - A convicted serial robber was found guilty on Wednesday of the murder of a waiter inside a Seaside motel room in 2014, prosecutors said Thursday.

Investigators suspected Andre Tyrone Johnson, 20, of the murder of Solomon Sandoval Perez almost immediately after Perez was found shot once in the chest in his room in the Gateway Lodge Motel on Fremont Boulevard in Seaside.

Johnson was arrested two days later and was found with Perez's cellphone, according to the Monterey County District Attorney's Office. But before Johnson was charged with the murder, he was taken to Santa Clara County and prosecuted for a series of armed robberies in San Jose six weeks prior to Perez's murder.

Meanwhile, Monterey County investigators matched a fingerprint found in Perez's motel room to Johnson, the final piece of evidence prosecutors needed to connect him to the murder, Deputy District Attorney Todd Hornik said.

Johnson was convicted of the robberies and sentenced to San Quentin State Prison.

Monterey County investigators interviewed him there and he was charged with murder on Aug. 13, 2015. Prosecutors said Johnson was at the motel that day.

Just minutes before shooting Perez, he tried to rob and beat a prostitute there. He then shot Perez once in the chest, piercing his heart and lung, in the course of stealing his cellphone.

Perez lived with his sister and niece and worked as a waiter and host at a Carmel restaurant.

"By all accounts he was a kind, friendly, hardworking man who harbored no ill will towards any person and had no known enemies," prosecutors wrote in a statement.

A jury on Wednesday found Johnson guilty of first-degree murder, residential burglary and an enhancement for the use of a gun.

He faces 50 years to life in prison when he's sentenced on June 28, a sentence he will have to complete after serving his current term in San Quentin.

-Bay City News, image via ShutterStock