Two Florida men who carried out a deadly home invasion at an Irvine residence that a group of young drug dealers were using for a large-scale marijuana selling operation were sentenced on Friday, Sept. 18 to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
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Andre Andrews, 41, and Omar Miller, 47, were convicted last year of first-degree murder for the killing of 20-year-old Raymond Alcala, who was fatally shot in the home on Bayleaf Lane, within a gated community in the Northwood neighborhood, on Oct. 26, 2019.
Family members in a written statement read by a friend at Andrews and Miller’s sentencing hearing described Alcala as “an amazing person” and “kind and loving,” adding that “Raymond was so much more than the circumstances that bring us here today.”
Jurors found that Andrews and Miller carried out the killing during a robbery, which led to the life without the possibility of parole sentences rather than the 25-year-to-life sentence a first-degree murder conviction ordinarily carries.
Armed with handguns, Miller and Andrews entered the house through a side door in the early morning hours. Dramatic surveillance camera footage captured them immediately attacking a sleeping man, who screamed and fought back as they subdued him and bound him with duct tape.
That same man was able to escape his bindings and got out of the house to run for help, the video showed.
But the video also captured audio of two gunshots ringing out upstairs. At least one bullet struck Alcala, fatally injuring him.
Miller and Andrews fled from the home. But DNA, neighborhood security footage of a vehicle the suspects rented and cell phone location data tied the pair to the scene.
Miller was believed to have fired the fatal gunshots, prosecutors alleged based on the weapons the two men were seen holding on the surveillance footage compared to ballistic evidence from the scene of the shooting. But both men were charged and convicted for Alcala’s slaying.
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The prosecutor, Senior Deputy District Attorney Lexie Elliott, told jurors during Miller and Andrews’ trial that the two men were driven by greed.
While another man who lived at the home denied it was a “drug house,” he acknowledged that occupants of the home met customers online and sent drugs through the mail. And, according to testimony during the trial, there were hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, luxury items and marijuana stored around the home.
A third defendant — Devon Quinland of Westminster — was accused of “roping” Andrews into the home invasion. Andrews brought in Miller, who prosecutors have described as an ex-Jamaican police officer.
Defense attorneys representing Andrews and Miller denied that the men intended to rob or kill anyone. They noted that the pair left cash and marijuana behind. And they accused detectives of failing to fully investigate who ordered the two men to go into the home, accusing police of grabbing “the two lowest rungs on a much taller ladder.”
Andrews’ attorney alleged he was acting under duress after his family was threatened by members of a drug cartel. Andrews and Miller assumed they were just going to scare somebody, the attorney said, believing “there were just some punk kids in there and they weren’t going to fight back.”
But they were apparently unaware that the young men who lived at the home had been the victims of an earlier attempted robbery that ended with one of them rushing and tackling an armed man. So, when Andrews and Miller entered the home, the men who lived there were armed and willing to fight back. And during one point in the confrontation, the defense said, Alcala was able to temporarily overpower one of his assailants before he was shot.
Quinland — the third defendant who prosecutors say recruited the others for the home invasion — was tried separately. He was convicted earlier this year on conspiracy and assault charges, and is scheduled to return to court for sentencing in October.
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City News Service contributed to this report.