A man convicted of raping and strangling a 20-year-old woman whose body was wrapped in a blanket and dumped in a shopping cart in Los Angeles was sentenced Thursday to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
A Los Angeles Superior Court jury deliberated less than a day on Feb. 6 before finding Rene Rolando Ailon, 27, guilty of the first-degree murder and forcible rape of Maylin Zulian Fuentes-Sanabria. Jurors also found true the special circumstance allegation of murder during the commission of a rape.
The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office opted not to seek the death penalty against Ailon.
The young woman was raped and strangled when she went to Ailon’s apartment in the 1500 block of South Gramercy Place on May 13, 2017.
After killing her, Ailon went to work and kept the body in his apartment for 24 hours before wrapping it a blanket and leaving it in a discarded shopping cart several blocks away, according to Deputy District Attorney Paul Thompson.
A resident came upon the victim’s body a short time later, and Ailon was linked to the crime through DNA evidence and phone records, the prosecutor said.
Los Angeles police arrested Ailon on May 24, 2017.
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