'Wannabe gangsters' convicted

Two men admitted to killing two young women in 2015. The murder case then faced years of obstacles.

- SANDRA MCDONALD

JOSE ECHEVERRIA listens to closing arguments in a courtroom in Los Angeles.

The two bodies discovered on a brush-covered slope in the Montecito Hills were not easily identified.

The victims were “faceless” after being shot and bludgeoned beyond recognition, according to Los Angeles County prosecutor Stephen Lonseth.

But there were clues: A tattoo with a family name. Fingernails painted aqua blue, a teenage girl’s beauty routine.

One had the word “hoe” written on her stomach in blood. The autopsy showed she was around seven weeks pregnant.

Investigators found the remains in a ditch in Ernest E. Debs Regional Park on Oct. 28, 2015. Using tattoos and dental records, police identified the victims as Gabriella Calzada, 19, and Brianna Gallegos, 17, who was carrying the baby.

Police interviewed a prime suspect within the first week: Jose Echeverria, 18, whose name Gallegos had tattooed on her chest. Four months later, detectives seemingly caught him confessing on a jailhouse recording that he and Dallas Pineda, 17, had brought the young women to the park and killed them.

But what seemed like an open-and-shut case dragged on for nearly a decade. Until Monday, when a jury convicted Echeverria and Pineda of first-degree murder.

Even by the glacial standards of L.A. County — where proceedings are known to crawl along due to frequent delays and a pandemic-fueled backlog — the path to justice was painfully slow.

The recent trial dredged up old memories, with some evidence suggesting gang loyalties pushed Echeverria and Pineda to commit the grisly crime — while prosecutor David Ayvazian alleged a more sinister motive.

“They didn’t kill these girls because they were rivals; they used that as an excuse. They liked it," Ayvazian said. "They set up this murder. They beat these girls to a bloody pulp."