A Mexican national who kidnapped an 18-year-old from San Diego and brutally beat, tortured, then finally shot him to death just weeks before his high school graduation was sentenced to life in prison on Wednesday.
Brian Alexis Patron Lopez, 24, executed Miguel Anthony Rendon on May 30, 2020, even as the teen’s family scrambled to meet the kidnapper’s ransom demands of up to $3,000 or methamphetamine, according to the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of California.
The ruthless killer was scolded by the judge and Rendon’s family during the emotional sentencing hearing.
Miguel Anthony Rendon was taken from his Tijuana hotel room in 2020, then pistol whipped, stuffed him into a waiting car and eventually killed. Family Handout“Every day I wake up with pain that will never go away. I want the defendant to carry the weight of what he did the rest of his life,” declared one of the victim’s relatives.
“You literally walked the victim to his death,” Judge William Hayes told Patron.
“You executed him, turned around, and you left [him] with trash on the hill,” the judge added.
The teen was slain in retaliation for stealing meth, instead of smuggling it into the US like he initially agreed to do, prosecutors have reportedly said.
Patron and others abducted Rendon from his Tijuana hotel room in 2020, pistol whipped him and stuffed him into a waiting car.
Rendon was driven to Patron’s neighborhood where he continued to be tortured, while demands for a ransom of $3,000 and meth were made via cell phone video calls in exchange for the teen’s release.
“My heart just almost stopped, he was tied up and bloody with his face. He could barely talk,” Rendon’s mom Emma Medrano told KSHB in 2022.
The horror ended 24 hours later on a deserted hillside where Rendon was shot to death as his mom attempted to pay the ransom.
Rendon’s body was returned from Mexico in a cardboard box in 2022, two years after he was killed. KGTV
Rendon was planning on joining the Marines after graduation. Family HandoutHis body was returned from Mexico in a cardboard box two years later.
Rendon’s mom said he was planning on joining the Marines after graduation from Hoover High School in San Diego.
During the trial, surveillance video that captured the kidnapping outside the Mexican hotel was presented to the jury.
In addition to the life sentence Patron was handed 35 years for hostage-taking resulting in death. All sentences run concurrently.
