Men identified as the shooter and driver were convicted of murder on Monday, Oct. 28, for their roles in 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.

An Orange County Superior Court jury found John Taylor — the alleged shooter — and Ryan Jones — the alleged driver — guilty of special circumstances murder for killing 29-year-old Osvaldo Garcia of Santa Ana during a robbery on Sept. 16, 2019. The two men now face up to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

A third man — Antonio Lamont Triplett — was convicted during an earlier trial of special circumstances murder for his role in the slaying and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Prosecutors in that earlier trial referred to Triplett as a “bag man” who ran off with Garcia’s backpack and the dispensary money.

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The only anomaly in this month’s slayings of six people during a marijuana deal gone wrong in the San Bernardino County desert, Sheriff Shannon Dicus said, was the number of people killed.

“Anytime you have six people who are murdered, that’s shocking to your conscience,” Dicus said Monday, Jan. 29, in announcing the arrests of five people who he said gunned down the six before setting four bodies ablaze. “But I can tell you that since we’ve been investigating illegal marijuana grows, there have been a number of body dumps related to this across our county. … This is a problem and this is a problem that is not really being talked about.”

The suspects were arrested as investigators served search warrants in Apple Valley, Adelanto and a portion of Piñon Hills that is in Los Angeles County. They were taken into custody at a compound close to what authorities believe was going to be a marijuana grow.

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