A state appeals court panel today upheld a woman’s conviction stemming from a 60-year-old man’s beating death inside his motorhome in Long Beach more than a decade ago.
Jazmin Montanez was retried and convicted again in 2022 of first-degree murder for the Jan. 27, 2014, bludgeoning of Thomas Taylor after a three-justice panel from California’s 2nd District Court of Appeal overturned her conviction, finding in a 2019 ruling that the “cumulative effect of two critical errors compels reversal” of her conviction.
That panel — which had upheld co-defendant Anthony Josua Paz’s conviction for second-degree murder — found that his admissions during a jailhouse conversation were “wrongly admitted as evidence” against Montanez.
The panel also found that the trial court did not instruct jurors on how they must evaluate the testimony of a potential accomplice.
Montanez, now 46, was sentenced again to 25 years to life in state prison following her 2022 conviction. Paz, now 32, is serving a 15-year-to-life term in state prison.
In the latest ruling upholding Montanez’s conviction from her retrial, an appellate court panel found that “there was quite strong evidence of defendant’s guilt.”
The justices noted that the prosecution had introduced into evidence what it contended was the murder weapon — a metal rod that was found by a dive team in the bed of the Los Angeles River after Paz told a jailhouse informant that he had thrown the weapon into the ocean.
Taylor was attacked in his motor home in an alley behind the 500 block of West 17th Street.
The victim lived in his RV and had allowed the five to visit him and do drugs together in the motor home, but decided that he wanted more privacy and asked them not to come back, according to evidence presented during his first trial.
Deputy District Attorney Rachel Hardiman described Montanez as the “catalyst” for the crime, saying after the verdict in the first trial that the woman told the group that she wanted Taylor dead.
Police smelled smoke while on routine patrol and tracked it to the RV, which had been set on fire with his body and his dog inside. The animal was rescued.
Three other defendants each pleaded guilty to assault with a deadly weapon in connection with the attack and were sentenced to eight years in state prison.