EL CAJON, Calif. -- Two men with drug habits were convicted Tuesday of the financially motivated strangulation and robbery of one of their grandmothers in her Alpine mobile home.
Brandon Hayes, 29, and his 22-year-old friend, Jeffrey Carl Reed, were both convicted of first-degree murder and the special circumstance allegations of murder committed in the course of a robbery and burglary in the May 16, 2009, death of Hayes' 73-year-old grandmother, Eunice Cothron.
They are facing life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, with sentencing set for Oct. 18 at the El Cajon courthouse.
Two juries heard the evidence against the defendants. The panels began deliberations Friday and reached verdicts Monday afternoon. The verdicts were held until this morning.
"We were mainly looking for closure and justice,'' said Cothron's niece, Linda Allen."Waiting this two and a half years has been difficult for the family.''
If she had the chance, Allen said she'd like to ask Hayes why he became so violent and acted out the way he did.
"Tell us why, what escalated it to the point that it did,'' she said.
Allen described Cothron as "very loving'' and "always there for everyone.''
Prosecutor Kurt Mechals said the defendants, both drug addicts, wanted money and forced their way into Cothron's home, strangled her, then robbed her before partying on the proceeds.
Hayes had alienated all of his family members except Cothron, but even she took out a temporary restraining order against her grandson about a month before her death, Mechals said.
Defense attorney Bart Sheela conceded that Hayes killed his grandmother but maintained he wasn't guilty of murder because he didn't go there to rob her. Instead, Sheela argued, Hayes strangled and robbed Cothron when she told him that she didn't have his birth certificate.
Hayes' father, Alan, found his mother's body on the kitchen floor. Mechals said the victim had blunt force injuries to her face, neck and head, bruises on her arms and lacerations to her neck.
A sheriff's deputy came upon the defendants at a Shell gas station near the victim's home around 4:30 a.m. the day of the murder and told Hayes the restraining order had become permanent, Mechals told the jury.
After killing Cothron, the defendants stole the victim's car and drove to the border near San Ysidro, Mechals said. The pair spent two days in Tijuana after the slaying, with Hayes spending a lot of money on a personal dancer, the prosecutor said.
Sheela said Hayes and Reed lived in Mexico because it was cheap and they could buy drugs there.
The attorney said the defendants went to Alpine the day of the killing so Hayes could retrieve his birth certificate, which he wanted for easier travel to Mexico and thought his grandmother had in her home.
Hayes initially sent Reed to Cothron's house to get the document, but when she told Reed, "I don't have it,'' both defendants returned to the mobile home, Sheela said.
When the victim told her grandson she didn't have his birth certificate, his whole world fell apart and he rushed in and killed her, then proceeded to steal her things, Sheela said.
Reed's attorney, Tom Carnessale, said in his closing arguments that Hayes was a "bizarre, deranged'' man who threatened Reed with a knife before the two went into Cothron's home.
Hayes and Reed met at a drug rehabilitation facility two weeks earlier and walked away from the program a few days before the murder.
"Jeffrey Reed happened to get mixed up with this guy 10 days before this happened,'' Carnessale said.
