LOS ANGELES — The California Supreme Court on Wednesday, Aug. 27, declined to review the case of three men convicted in the murder of a 13-year-old Whittier girl more than two decades ago.
About 2 1/2 months ago, a three-justice panel from California’s 2nd District Court of Appeal noted that Santos Grimaldi, Melvin Sandoval and Rogelio Contreras raised a “plethora of challenges to either their convictions or sentences,” but found that “their substantive challenges lack merit.”
Grimaldi, now 42, and Sandoval, now 46, were convicted of first-degree murder for the June 2001 killing of Jacqueline Piazza and are serving life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Jurors also found true the special circumstance allegations of murder during the commission of a rape and a lewd act on a child against the two, along with gang and gun allegations.
Contreras, now 48, was found guilty of second-degree murder, with jurors also finding true gang and gun allegations. He was sentenced to 40 years to life in state prison.
The first jury to hear the case against the three men had deadlocked, but a separate jury convicted a fourth man, Jorge Palacios, now 47, of first-degree murder and kidnapping to commit another crime involving Piazza’s killing.
Jurors in Palacios’ case also found true the special circumstance allegations of murder during a kidnapping, murder during a rape or attempted rape and murder during the commission or attempted commission of a lewd act on a child, along with gang and gun allegations.
Palacios was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in June 2019, moments after telling the teen’s parents, “I feel really terrible about what happened. Trust me, I wasn’t part of what happened … I know justice will be served.”
A state appeals court panel subsequently upheld Palacios’ conviction, with the panel noting that the victim was quietly sobbing in the back seat when the vehicle stopped under a freeway underpass and she was ordered into the car’s trunk so roadway cameras would not be able to document her as a passenger.
The four defendants were indicted in May 2012 for the girl’s killing.
At Grimaldi and Sandoval’s sentencing hearing in August 2022, the victim’s mother, Elizabeth, called her daughter’s loss “so sudden and shocking,” and said it was surreal to have to tell family members that she had been murdered.
“We will always miss her,” she said.
Monique Piazza said she was 10 when she realized her older sister was never going to come home again.
“I would never get the chance to say goodbye,” she said.
In a brief statement before he was sentenced, Grimaldi said his heart went out to the victim’s family for their loss, but called himself the victim of a “wrongful conviction” obtained by the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office.
Grimaldi said it had been a “roller coaster” for him and his family since he was charged with the crime and called it the “worst experience” he has been through.
Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler, who imposed the sentences, said then that it had been a “long and winding road to get here” and said the police “never gave up for a minute” and “allowed it to come to a just end.”