Left to right: Aranda Briones (Facebook/Justice for Aranda Isabel Briones), Owen Shover (Riverside County Sheriff’s Department), Briones at school (Moreno Valley Police Department).
A California man will likely spend the rest of his life behind bars for the disappearance and revenge murder of a classmate who he blamed for getting him expelled from high school several years ago.
Owen Skyler Shover, 23, hails from Hesperia, a large city in San Bernardino County, located some 80 miles northeast of Los Angeles.
In January 2019, the defendant killed Aranda Isabel Briones, 16, and then buried her somewhere in the unforgiving San Bernardino Mountains nearby. To date, the girl’s remains have never been found.
On Wednesday, Shover was convicted by a jury of his peers on one count of murder in the first degree, along with a special circumstance of lying in wait. Under Golden State law, special circumstances are essentially sentencing enhancements that, if applied, must result in one of two outcomes: life in prison or the death penalty.
On Jan. 13, 2019, two of the girl’s friends saw her get into the since-condemned man’s car at Bayside Park in Moreno Valley, in Riverside County. After that, she vanished. The only trace of the girl left was her blood — found pooled in the trunk of Shover’s Nissan Versa.
But the relationship between the killer and the victim went back much further.
The two were friends who attended Moreno Valley High School together. On Nov. 7, 2017, a group of students, including the ill-fated pair, were hanging out at a local park instead of attending classes. Shover had a small handgun in his possession that day. When a truancy officer broke up the party, Shover threw the weapon to Briones and shouted for her to hide it, according to a trial brief prepared by Riverside County District Attorney Mike Hestrin and obtained by City News Service, a California-based wire service.
Briones panicked. She threw the gun into a drainage canal — and apparently got caught disposing of the firearm. When questioned by law enforcement and school officials, she finally told the truth: the gun belonged to Shover, and he was the one who gave it to her.
In February 2018, both Briones and Shover were expelled.
The girl moved to another school but stayed in the district, while the boy was forced to move in with his father in Hesperia, some 50 miles north. Out: the Inland Empire with its adjacency to the Southern California coastline and broader Los Angeles metro area. In the decidedly more remote and parched environs of the Mojave Desert with its concomitant sagebrush, Joshua trees, and cactus after cactus.
During a jury trial that began on Aug. 12, prosecutors argued that Shover nursed his bitterness for nearly a year in the dry heat.
Law enforcement cataloged a series of social media interactions from November 2018 through January 2019 in which the defendant tried to — and eventually did — obtain another handgun.
Then, on Jan. 12, 2019, Shover asked Briones to hang out with him again. He promised something of the Wild West to the girl in the text messages cited by prosecutors: she would accompany him on drug deliveries and ride along as he “robs drug dealers.”
For whatever reason — a breach seemingly repaired, the thrill of crimes that could barely be punished — the girl agreed. They met at Bayside Park at 5 p.m. the next day. And within an hour, she was posting photos of the old friends being reunited, happiness to be with the “homie” once more, glee at being allowed to do some of the driving.
But the hour was only golden for just about that long.
Minutes before 6 p.m., the car was heading north — toward a trailer park in San Bernardino County. Along the way, Shover messaged his brother: “Be ready for tonight. Get shovels and lighter fluid ready.”
Then, the boys headed into the tall mountains — taking state Routes 138 and 18. Between roughly 8:30 p.m. and 10:15 p.m., there is no good indication of exactly where they traveled due to the lack of cellular phone data. Owen Shover’s phone only turned back on again when he returned to his father’s house on Grevillea Street.
Gary Anthony Shover, 27, pleaded guilty in March to one count of accessory after the fact. He was sentenced to one year in the county jail, followed by 12 months of probation. The older brother was initially charged with Briones’ murder (and the lying-in-wait enhancement) as well — but that charge was dismissed in 2022.
In the end, the elder Shover admitted to the cover-up but not the underlying crime, according to a report by City News Service. A neighbor said she saw investigators retrieve clothing and blankets from holes in their backyard — evidence used to charge them both.
While the older brother took the plea deal, the younger brother opted for a 6-day trial. After over a day of deliberations, Riverside County jurors sealed his fate. Due to the death penalty effectively nonexistent in California, he faces a mandatory term of life in prison without the possibility of parole when he is sentenced on Oct. 25.
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