Luis Gustavo Aroyo-Lopez, right, killed his 64-year-old grandmother, Elvia Lopez-Aroyo, left, before he decapitated her and left her Santa Rosa, California, home with her head. Officers found her head at a nearby creek. (Aroyo-Lopez: Santa Rosa Police Department; Lopez-Aroyo via GoFundMe)
A California man with “420” tattooed on the side of his head will spend at least the next quarter-century in prison for murdering and decapitating his grandmother and dumping her head near a creek.
Luis Gustavo Aroyo-Lopez, 24, last month pleaded guilty to a murder charge in the death of his 64-year-old grandmother, Elvia Lopez-Aroyo. A judge sentenced him to 25 years to life in prison for the murder. The judge tacked on another seven years for Aroyo-Lopez assaulting a guard while in jail, according to records.
Family members lambasted the convicted murderer at his sentencing hearing Thursday as a wannabe “gangsta” who is really just a “coward,” the Press Democrat reported.
“What he did has left the family very hurt,” said the victim’s daughter-in-law, Gabriela Mejia, according to the newspaper. “We ask for justice because what he did was inhumane.”
Aroyo-Lopez’s attorney read a statement to his family on behalf of his client apologizing for “all the pain I caused you.”
“What I did was unforgivable,” attorney Nate Raff reportedly said.
Officers from the Santa Rosa Police Department were first called around 3:40 p.m. on Nov. 2 to the 2500 block of Pomo Trail for a possible homicide. When officers arrived, they the found Lopez-Aroyo’s headless body. Her head was nowhere to be found. Investigators determined the Aroyo-Lopez killed his grandmother in a “targeted attack before leaving with the female victim’s head,” a press release said.
Police recovered multiple weapons from the home. There’s never been a motive unveiled for the crime.
Detectives worked with the U.S. Marshals Service to circulate information about Aroyo-Lopez to other law enforcement agencies to bring him into custody. On Nov. 4, an “alert” San Francisco Police Department patrol officer at the Transbay Transit Center recognized Aroyo-Lopez from the wanted persons bulletin. Aroyo-Lopez had some recognizable characteristics: He has a large “420” with a marijuana leaf tattooed on the side of his head. The officer took him into custody without incident.
Santa Rosa police detectives made the roughly 60-mile trip to San Francisco and took him back to the Sonoma County Main Adult Detention Facility.
With Aroyo-Lopez in custody, officers had to work to find his grandmother’s head. Around 7:30 p.m. Nov. 4, police found Lopez-Aroyo’s head on the south bank of the Santa Rosa Creek, about a half-mile from where she was killed. They took her head to the medical examiner’s office for further investigation. Police have not revealed the cause of death.
The grandmother’s death has left her family in shock.
“She was a loving person and she adored so dearly all her grandchildren. She didn’t deserve what was done to her. Her death has impacted our family greatly and we are seeking for help during this time of despair,” a GoFundMe fundraiser said.
As Law&Crime previously reported, Aroyo-Lopez had recently been released from prison following convictions for assault with a deadly weapon and weapons possession charges. Those charges were not related to the victim in this incident.
One of the victim’s neighbors spoke to San Francisco CBS affiliate KPIX about what she saw before and after the victim’s gruesome murder. The neighbor, identified only as “Jessica” because she feared for her safety, told the station that she saw Aroyo-Lopez casually walking in the direction of the victim’s home at around noon on Nov. 2.
“He just walked a normal pace and, made an exact turn up the walkway, and knocked on the door. I paused over here with my dog just to make sure my neighbor knew who he was,” Jessica told the station. “[The victim] was surprised and happy, and I heard the word ‘you.’ They were just, you know, talking and then the door closed, and I thought, ‘Phew! She knows the guy.””
But about three hours after she initially saw Aroyo-Lopez, Jessica said she heard a woman run out of the house in a panic after finding the victim’s headless body.
“She kept yelling ‘No head!’ and I wasn’t sure what she meant,” Jessica said, adding that the woman repeatedly went in and out of the victim’s house, apparently looking for the victim’s head. The woman who found the victim and was heard yelling was the victim’s sister, The Press Democrat reported.
Jerry Lambe contributed to this report
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