True Crime with Kimbyr - College Student Murdered After 4th Of July Party - Haunting Clues Left Behind On The Roadway: Part 3

Episode Date: July 14, 2025

The final chapter of Megan Barroso’s case brings heartbreak, outrage, and a long-awaited reckoning. In Part 3 of True Crime with Kimbyr, Kimbyrleigha covers the dramatic courtroom showdown, haunting witness accounts, and the twisted mindset of the killer finally brought to light. How did the jury respond to the gruesome evidence? And did Megan’s family finally find justice? This emotional conclusion offers closure—and raises deeper questions about safety, justice, and the long shadow this case left behind. Tune in to True Crime with Kimbyr for the conclusion to a story that will stay with you. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So he looked out the window and he sees Vincent washing his truck. Now, he recalled it was still dark out. And when asked, if he thought it was kind of unusual, he said, not really, but he did mention it to Jessica. And she looked over at the clock, kind of like when you check what time it is and you say, at this hour, he's doing that. It was exactly 4.11 a.m. Joaquin was asked if you noticed anything that morning as well.

And he also saw Vincent washing his truck at 5. He even waved to him. So that must have been quite the cleaning. If he's doing it at four and he's still cleaning at 5.30 in the morning, he even bragged to Steve later about how much better the truck looked now that he shampooed the seats. But it makes you wonder what prompted such an intense cleaning in the early morning hours after Vincent was not seen inside his house. And that's what the investigators wanted to know. Not only that, Jessica mentioned seeing damage to the first

front of Vincent's truck and she asked him what happened and he told her, oh, I got stuck in traffic. I was blocked in and I bumped into a car. None of this seemed like a coincidence at all. He was gone around the same time frame Megan was attacked. And when more friends are interviewed, investigators find out another piece of information that doesn't seem random. His close friend George said that Vincent was actually really upset on the 4th of July. It all stemmed from an incident that happened back in June. His girlfriend, Luz, had a daughter that was graduating from high school that summer, and they threw a party with close friends and family. Vincent came, but he began making a scene when Luz's ex-husband, the father of her daughter, showed up. They got into an

argument, and Vincent actually tried to fight him. Well, this did not go over well with Luz and her family. Vincent was told to leave, and he was never allowed over again for a celebration, especially ones that involved Luz's ex-husband, who had every right to be present for his own child's milestone. Well, Fourth of July was another one of those celebrations. It was a goodbye party for Luz's daughter, who was going off to college now, and it was also a holiday celebration, and Luz's ex was going to be in attendance. Vincent was not allowed to be there, and he was not happy about it. And Vincent had already been expressing his frustrations to George, everything from being out of work to his relationship with Luz falling apart.

He resented Luz's sister, Elizabeth, because she was trying to get Luz to reconcile with the ex-husband. She did not like Vincent. She wanted him out of her sister's life. Luz had come home with a black guy a couple months before this, and Elizabeth had enough. She actually confronted Vincent, and he told her she better watch out. He was going to kill her family, kill Luz in front of the kids,

and they would never find the bodies. Clearly this man was way more of unhinged than even his friends and his roommates were aware of. George explained that this had been going on for a while. Luz's family didn't want her to be with him since way back when they first met. They were always up and down, breaking up, getting back together. It was toxic. But it was because of Vincent.

He was majorly possessive. He was violent. And they tried living together once. But she didn't like how much he drank and how much he controlled her. So she moved out. He had gone on meds to try to work things that would live. and for a little while, things seemed normal, whatever that means. They even went on a vacation in May.

Ballouz suspected that he'd come off of his meds in the last couple months because his behavior was getting more erratic. George explained that on the night of July 4th, Vincent kept calling Lou's over and over again, but her sister would answer and told him to leave them alone, and that he wasn't going to ruin their night. And she hung up. He couldn't reach Lou's, and she never called him that day. Apparently, she considered them broken up, but he didn't.

And what was chilling is that George admitted Vincent had confided in him that he was at his breaking point, that he was going to kill the next person that set him off, that he had done some very bad things, that he couldn't even tell George about or he wouldn't want to be his friend anymore. In just the week prior to the 4th of July, Vincent was standing in the road with George and he was holding an AK-47 that belonged to Josh, and he was aiming at him, at passing cars, saying that he could easily stop a car with one shot. And then even more terrifying, Vincent took George out to Black Canyon and showed him

places where he said he could hide a body and it would never be found. I just want to pause and say, if my friend had said any of this or waved a high-powered rifle at cars, I think I would call the police. Because it's kind of beyond me why people don't. Don't alert the authorities to these things, but maybe it's because of fear. George said, he didn't think Vincent was serious. He thought he was just depressed and he was talking irrationally. But he'd been staying in his room with the lights off, with dark curtains covering the windows for weeks.

Even telling George that he hoped that cops would shoot him and get it over with. But here's the thing. Luz's sister's house was right near Megan's friend Lindsay's house. And Megan was over there a little. after 2.30 a.m. during the same time that Vincent was not seen at his house. Investigators now speculated that in a rage after drinking all day, Vincent stole Josh's rifle and decided to go confront Lou's and her family. He drove over there. But from the interviews that they conducted, the party had ended by 1.30.

So when he realized it was a lost cause, he headed back home. But that is when he saw Megan, hugging Lindsay out in the roadway in front of Lindsay's house when she went back to return her cell phone. They believed that this triggered Vincent, whether it was anger or he was turned on or both. They don't know, but they think that he followed Megan as she drove back home and he attempted to run her off the road. But she resisted.

And he escalated his attempt and used the gun. It was all adding up, especially because Sharon was making more connections. When the news picked up the story of potentially catching the person responsible for the Seamy Valley offenses, Vincent's Mugshot was posted in the paper. And a woman named Margie immediately felt chills go down her back. She recognized that face and immediately called the police. Back in early October of 2000, Margie had just gotten off work around 3 a.m. from a shift at a restaurant.

She was on the same highway Megan had been on when she was attacked. When Margie called in, she told police she made a report after a man chased her all. all over Seamy Valley with his lights off and tried to run her off the road with his truck. She would speed up and then he would get right behind her to the point of almost hitting her. And when she would try to get away, he would follow her. She finally exited the freeway and so did he. She became more and more terrified. As she was trying to get away, she saw a police car parked in a parking lot.

She drove over frantically and the officer listened as she recounted what had just occurred. She described the truck in detail, even going so far to tell them it had a particular fireman's emblem on the back window. This matched Vincent's truck. This proved that Vincent had a habit of using his truck to try to run women off the road. Just like when investigators believed happened to Megan. Now they wanted to examine the Ranger and when they did. They noted it had damage to its right side. And the front bumper guard was missing.

By now, the rifle, the jacket and the ranger were being processed at the crime lab, as well as a number of other pieces of evidence found at Vincent's house that I previously mentioned to you. While all of that is being tested, which could take a little while, Seamy Valley investigators had Vincent in an interview room pressing him about the items they had received and the content on the videotapes. It was hard evidence that he had harmed those women who were still being identified at the time, but after he was confronted with so much, he couldn't deny it. He admitted that he had forced himself on a few girls, but he would not be specific.

And he really tried to downplay the whole entire thing, saying that he did those things because his girlfriend, Luz, made him angry. He'd admitted to stalking his victims, to peeping in their houses, to writing down their routines, even entering their bedrooms when they weren't home or when they were sleeping. and he would practice his attacks by getting familiar with the layout of their home and then he would break in, and he would wait for them. He described wearing a ski mask and gloves and said he would record the attacks. But these confessions only applied to the Seamy Valley women, not to Megan Barroso.

When it was Megan's lead detective Rick Barrios's turn to speak with Vincent, he knew that he had to get on his good side. He had to warm up to him. He had to build a good rapport before he even started to start to speak. to ask about Megan. They had small talk about what Vincent liked to do, what kind of person he was, and about his family. Vincent talked a lot about how much he loved his girlfriend and her children. And that's when the detective tried to appeal to his emotions, and he asked him, how would it feel if a child that you loved were missing? And as soon as he said that, Vincent's mood changed entirely. He went silent. He would not talk about anything. He would not talk

about Megan at all. He swore he had nothing to do with that case. Barrios turned up the heat, but the more he pressed him, the more defensive Vincent got. There was one point where he actually compared himself to O.J. Simpson, and I was like, yikes, but he was referencing how O.J. was wrongly accused and how the same thing was happening to him, and I don't even want to get into that case, but Vincent shut down. He just ended the interview, but by this time, detectives had a evidence. And they sadly had a pretty good idea where they might find Megan's body. By this time, they knew she was probably deceased. And on August 3rd, they sent search teams with bloodhounds and cadaver canines out to Black Canyon, where Vincent had bragged to his friend

George that he could hide a body and it would never be found. I guess unless you tell your bestie and then he rats you out. But this is a very remote area southeast of Seamy Valley. known as a common dump site, which is just sad. But that was the fact. It was about 20 miles from where Megan's rental car had been found, and there were at least 3,000 people participating in this search, including Megan's own mother, Suzanne. They were combing through this terrain, which is actually very gorgeous

if they weren't looking for a body. People would go there to meditate, to hike, and catch the amazing view of the sunset. But the further you go, the more isolated it becomes. And there were a lot of places that you could get lost out there. But luckily, George had instructed them on where Vincent said he would put someone, and they kept searching. At the same time, CSI was combing through Megan's apartment and took DNA from personal items

so they could create a profile to compare to the items collected from Vincent's, including the jacket. When they examined the jacket, they noticed a hole near the bottom left side. Now, it didn't appear to have blood anywhere on it, which is why they think Vincent took it with him, but there were microscopic drops of blood that he couldn't see. And when it was swabbed and tested, it matched Megan's DNA. More evidence just stacking up, especially when it came to the inside of the Ranger truck. They knew that he had washed the interior, but when they sprayed it with luminal, it just lit up. Now, they couldn't exactly test it and will explain why in just a messier.

minute so they couldn't determine whether this was Megan's DNA. But the pattern itself was telling. There was a horizontal stain across the passenger seat from top to bottom, which showed that Megan had been sitting up right next to Vincent as he drove. They even took paint scrapings from both vehicles, and there were plastic fragments that were embedded in the Pontiac's side. They were tested, and they matched the Ranger. So this seems to be a slam dunk, right? Megan's jacket has blood on it. It's inside Vincent's house. The Ranger is found.

It has blood inside. The gun matched. And of course, the circumstantial evidence from what Vincent's friends told the police. But a defense attorney could easily create reasonable doubt. The Ranger actually belonged to lose. Vincent was just borrowing it. And he wasn't the only one that had access to it. There was nothing that connected Vincent to all three, the rifle, the truck.

and Megan's jacket. I know it sounds like it's straightforward, but they still needed more. So they continued combing the truck for anything else they could find. Maybe a tiny fiber, a hair, something. And this is because they could not take DNA from that seat because it had been thoroughly washed. Yes, luminal could show that blood had been there, but the actual testing was too diluted. They could not find her DNA. So they knew blood was there, but couldn't prove it was Megan's. By August 5th, the search teams up on that canyon still hadn't found anything. But that same day, they brought in a canine named Bella, because earlier, a woman named Aaron McGuire alerted the sheriff's office that she was walking her dog Rusty near a ravine

on the north hills of the canyon. And he began acting really strange and dragging her towards a ravine. And when she looked up, she saw the search helicopters, and she thought there could be a connection. So the cadaver canine, Bella was brought in, and she was brought in, and she was, She picked up the scent, and even her handler, Miss Teller, could actually smell the odor. Bella pulled her towards a 50-foot drop down a steep ravine, and the dog stopped at the top. They knew they were close, because Bella was a special dog that was trained to sit when she discovered the scent of a human body, and she was now giving that signal. Her handler knew that they had to dissent down into that ravine and allow Bella to bring Megan home.

And Bella delivered. She brought her to a really dense patch of brush and sat down again, and investigators and crime scene teams came to that area, and they soon uncovered Megan's remains. They knew that it was her right away. By what she was wearing, but not her clothing, because most of that was missing,

but the ring on her finger. the one her mother had gifted to her. Sadly, her body had been in the elements for a month and it was severely decomposed. But in the bright sunlight, on that canyon, the investigators noticed something. Bright red glitter in Megan's hair. It sparkled and shined,

just the way it had under the lights of the fireworks on the 4th of July. An added touch to their outfits that Lindsay had purchased. It was pixie dust, a brand of glitter sold at Hot Topic at the time. It was a very fine glitter used for makeup looks,

your body, or even your hair, and Lindsay sprinkled a little on herself and the girls as they were enjoying the celebration that night. Never did she think it would ultimately become evidence in her best friend's murder. In that moment, it was just something noticeable, but not a connection until later. Now, they were focusing on a recovery mission

to get Megan back to her family so she could be laid to rest after her. after her autopsy. It took Michael Perrigan and his team six hours to remove Megan's remains from that canyon. He was the lead supervisor at the crime lab and an expert in trace, evidence, and DNA. Her remains had been buried under 12 inches of yard waste,

and then there were two feet of brush laid on top of her to conceal her body. And now the investigators were alerting her loved ones of the devastating news. Detectives went to Lindsay's. And in that moment, when they told her the news, she said she tried to scream, but nothing came out. It was as though time was just frozen.

And once the initial shock had faded enough to think clearly, Lindsay had only one wish. She wanted to sit face to face with the person that did this to her best friend, and looked them in the eyes and asked them why. Meanwhile, Megan's father was devastated. I mean, there was no words that could even capture what he was feeling. When he tried to speak, he talked about how inadequate words were like sadness or pain. It just didn't match the profound void that Megan's death had carved into his life.

Megan had always been his shining light, the joyful daughter who changed his life the moment she entered it. But now in losing her, he felt like the most important part of himself was gone forever. And the news was traveling across Ventura County and it was painful. This community had hoped and prepared and, prayed for Megan's safe return. Hundreds of volunteers had been combing through neighborhoods. They were hanging up those posters, and they were all surrounding the Barroso family

in hope that Megan would return safe. But with this heartbreaking confirmation of her death, they were grieving. Megan's loss was not a private family tragedy. It was a collective heartbreak. This entire community was hurting. They all believed in a happy ending, and that's not the one that they got.

And now I'd like to tell you, about the autopsy. The Ventura County Medical Examiner's office conducted Megan's autopsy and further forensic analysis was done by Dr. O'Halloran, who reviewed the physical findings in detail. Megan had been found wearing her green, fitted shirt,

a sheer pair of white thong underwear, and she was lying on her side. Her left arm was across her torso, with her right arm positioned above her head. This was a posture that raised some questions about whether she had been placed in that position, or had moved into that position herself as she was in pain before dying.

What stood out was Lindsay had reported that Megan had been wearing, in her words, white granny panties. They were those normal cotton underwear. Not fongs. Megan's capri pants were nowhere to be found, and the fact that she was seemingly in someone else's underwear meant that hers had been removed,

which led investigators to conclude that she had been violated. And we're going to get back to this later. Because there were reasons that this made sense besides the obvious ones. The medical examiner did confirm that Megan had been shot and the bullet did not hit any major arteries and it didn't even appear to damage her spinal cord. According to Dr. O'Halloran, the bullet came to rest very close, dangerously close to her spine, but probably did not leave her paralyzed or even unconscious immediately. In fact, the doctor believed that Megan had remained alert and aware of what was going on and

and aware of her injuries for some time after the shooting, which was actually very heartbreaking to think about. The internal bleeding that she would have suffered would have happened gradually, meaning that with medical care, within ideally 30 minutes, Megan would have survived. And that made me so angry. It's really sad to think that there was a possibility

that Megan was still alive as she was abandoned in that dark ravine. Analysis of her injuries, the blood loss patterns, This was a detail that just deepened the pain of everyone that loved her. And I would be wrecked thinking about her lying there in those last moments. It actually made me sick. She did nothing wrong. This poor girl. And now I have to talk about the essay.

So we know Vince and Zemo. We know what he usually does to his victims. But due to the advanced state of decommosition, nothing remained in that area at all. And, you know, that's the area. that's tested in these kind of cases, so it couldn't be examined or even swapped. No male DNA could be removed, and scientifically speaking, the process

that her body went through, through the decomposition process, it compromised the other pieces of clothing as well, so they could not be sufficiently tested. However, as each victim of the Seamy Valley attacks were being interviewed, they were identifying undergarments that belonged to them and were found in Vincent's house. He had a fixation on thongs.

Even his friends kind of jokingly said that he could spot a woman in a thong from yards away. And not only that, his second known victim from Sharon's research was an 18-year-old girl named Jenny, and she was confronted on June 14th of 1997 at 4 o'clock in the morning. She woke up, she saw a man in her house with a knife, he threatened to kill her, and she got up and screamed, and her father woke up and chased him away. But she realized when she went back in her bedroom later, the number of her thong underwear were missing and taken by the intruder.

His ninth known victim, and we're going in time order, I'm going to call her Sarah, because I'm not trying to use their real names. She was 20, and it happened March 20th of 2000, and the reason I'm bringing up these two people were the thong underwear. It was 3 o'clock in the morning.

She was in her bedroom when a man broke in the middle of the night, and he told her he was a police officer, but she knew pretty quickly that he wasn't, when he started to demand that she'd do things to him, or else he would hurt her. He apparently had taken a knife from her kitchen and was threatening her with it. He was demanding that she put on a pair of thongs

that he had retrieved out of her dresser. She did. And then she said something was put over her head, and he started to snap photos of her. She was one of the women that was later identified in one of the video recordings that Vincent took from this woman's bedroom. He later took her car keys

and drove her in her own car to his house and made her put on two different pairs of satin thongs from inside a black duffel bag, and he continued videotaping other things that he did. And then, when he was taking her back home, he started asking her things about her life and her boyfriend. When she started to cry, he called her a snobby, pretty girl, and also said weird things like, I would marry you and get you pregnant with a bunch of kids.

It's just sick, disgusting. and evil. And then he finally dropped her off at 5.30 in the morning back at her house. But knowing that at least two, possibly three of his other victims have been asked to either put on thongs or he'd taken thongs, it made sense that the same thing happened to Megan. He probably had them with him in his duffel bag that he took. If not, perhaps he went somewhere and he had a pair at another location. Either way, it was clear to detectives that he had violated Megan, even if they didn't have DNA proof because of his history of violence towards women and his pattern of his crimes. By this time, Vincent's girlfriend Luz was cooperating with the

authorities, although it wasn't easy to get her to talk. I will say that. I guess you could call it an odd type of loyalty. I don't know if that's the right word, but it seemed like maybe it was out of fear that she didn't really want to admit that much about her relationship with Vincent, but it could have also been shame because she admitted that once he could have been to be that once he to confess to what he did to the See Me Valley Girls, she knew that he probably killed Megan, too. And I'd imagine that finding out someone you loved and trusted had done these type of things would be pretty hard to reconcile. Maybe she even blamed herself, even though it is not this woman's fault, by the way. But he would gaslight her. He would make her believe that his anger was all

because of her. She did call him on a recorded line for the police, and she tried to get him to admit to killing Megan, but he told her that he didn't know. know anything about their case, that the cops were just trying to stack charges against him now that he confessed to the things he'd done in Seamy Valley, which by the way, he said was exaggerated. He said it was only four or five girls, not 11, like it makes a difference. One was one too many. Remember the pixie dust glitter that I told you about? I'm sure some of you maybe even have a bottle from back the day. I know I do. It's still being sold today, but back then it wasn't that popular. It didn't sell very well.

Only 10,000 bottles of that specific glitter had ever been manufactured by 2001. Well, when the CSI used tape lifts in the ranger on the seats and on the upholstery in the truck and in the bed, and they looked at these strips under a microscope, they noticed the same red glitter that was also lifted from the bomber jacket

and in her hair. And under a microscope, Dr. Ed Jones, a forensic scientist, was able to tell the glitter actually had a hexagon shape to it, and it was very unique. It was red on one side and silver on the other, which made it shine the way that it did. It was 250 microns in size.

Just to compare, a human hair is about 70 microns. So small. And we know how small glitter is. But now they just needed to see if any of this glitter was found on something that Vincent had in his home. And when they tested the rifle, and they fired the test bullets, which actually matched fragments at the scene, a technician found a single piece of red glitter on that gun.

Just one of these tiny little pieces had been left behind, and that was all they need to connect him. I know it was on the jacket, and I know the jacket was in his house, but still, they needed more. And by August 10th of 2001, Vincent Sanchez stood in court facing 62 charges against him. The charges spanned years and reflected a pattern of escalating violence from breaking and entering homes, then watching his victims to physically harming them, and then killing Megan. And to think. Glitter really confirmed the connections forensically.

Glitter is so hard to get rid of, which is why people make glitter bombs and why some establishments, if you know what I mean, started to tell women they couldn't wear it to work because men were coming home with sparkles all over them and getting caught or even being accused of something they hadn't even done because it transfers so easily. But yes, glitter was the casecracker, among of course, so much other evidence. But it just really helped to build a solid case against Vincent. And on Sunday, August 12th, a crowd of 500 people came together to celebrate Megan's life at Peace Lutheran Church.

Half of the attendees filled every seat in that sanctuary, while the other half watched on monitors from an overflow area in the the adjacent hall. The church was beautifully decorated overflowing with flowers and large portraits of Megan. At the center, on a softly lit pedestal, set a plum-colored urn containing Megan's ashes, with a deep blue velvet bag gently resting underneath it. Suzanne and Art, Megan's parents, sat quietly apart, but each were surrounded by their own circle of loved ones and supporters, and Reverend Jerry Esther, whose daughter, Cricket that I told you about, shared a close friendship with Megan throughout their high school years, remembered her boundless spirit.

He spoke about her smile and how it just reflected Megan's personality, how she walked in a room with a bounce, and her energy and laughed her. She radiated joy wherever she went. An original song was written in Megan's honor called Megan's song, and it was performed beautifully by a small choir. The lyrics resonated with everyone there. There was one line that said, It's a long road that brought our Megan home, but we can't give up, not yet. We are strong-willed, pulling hearts uphill, and we won't ever just forget. And I told you there were 10 victims that Sharon had linked to Seamy Valley. But with 11 being Megan and then Donna and Margie, it came to 13.

And many of their cases were connected through items, through DNA, photos, and videos. Investigators eventually pieced them all together, and they believed, They knew what happened to Megan Barroso in the early morning hours of July 5th of 2001. Megan was outside of Lindsay's house hugging her goodbye when an angry Vincent Sanchez, leaving his girlfriend's sister's house after not being invited to their party that night. He spotted Megan, who fit the physical characteristics of all of his other victims, petite with dark hair, which is also what his girlfriend lose looked like. Whether he wanted to take out his rage on Megan or do what he'd done before,

to the women he'd attacked. He followed her to the freeway, and as she drove home, he was armed with his roommate's AK-47, which was most likely going to be used to taunt, Luz, and her family. But he told George, he wanted to hurt the next person

who pissed him off and crossed his path. Whatever the reason, he was armed and dangerous. When he was in the area, he felt was dark enough, he pulled up behind Megan and attempted to run her off the road, but she kept going. As their vehicles neared the off-ramp of Los Angeles Avenue. He sped up, got beside her, and fired a shot into the passenger side of her car.

This appeared to be a warning shot, scaring her into complying, but she didn't pull over. He then floored his truck and sped off in front of her, then parked it in the intersection, got out and waited for Megan to stop at the light. As she pulled up, he began shooting with bullets nearly missing her as she ducked and lunged to avoid being hit. He was coming towards her, which was evidenced by the forensic data that showed the shots got closer as he closed the distance. She then floored the car, and as she passed him, he shot into the driver's side. This shot hit her in the stomach. She veered off the road, and when the car went up on the median, Vincent reached in the window, unlocked her door, and took her out of her car, and placed her into the passenger seat of the Ranger and drove off.

The medical examiners don't believe that she died right away. However, inside the truck, as a A significant amount of blood was found pulled on the passenger seat, as well as smeared along the side, indicating that she was inside for at least a little while as he drove to the next location, where he removed her capri pants that were never found, and he probably got rid of them because they had blood on them, and the underwear was never found as well. He put the thongs on her and committed axe on her before he drove her to the canyon and threw her over into the ravine. Then he put branches and brush on top of her to conceal her body. they believe he may have returned to the scene to do that at a later time

to make sure she was hidden and he probably only had time to place her there that night when he had to go back home and he began cleaning his truck. At least two people witnessed this. The Seamy Valley crimes alone carried a life sentence without the possibility of parole and he pleaded guilty to all of them and to Megan's murder on October 4th of 2001.

But the judge rejected their murder plea because he didn't indicate whether it was first degree or second degree. So the case went to trial. He was eligible for the death penalty, which the prosecution was seeking. And I'm not going to go into the deep arguments on each side. But the defense was saying that the state couldn't prove that Megan was alive when the violations occurred. So this meant that the death penalty wouldn't apply because there needed to be special circumstances. The state brought a bunch of witnesses forward, pathologists concluding that Megan was likely able to survive 15 minutes up to two days after being shot.

There was no evidence that she'd suffer rapid blood loss at the sight of the attack. Instead, the most probable cause of death was a severe infection that was triggered by the bullet going through her intestines, causing bacteria to seep into her abdomen. This would have gradually poisoned her system, resulting in actually a slow and agonizing death. This was critical. It was necessary to show this was the truth in order to get that capital murder charge, and he attempted to self-exit with a sharp piece of metal in his cell, but he was not

successful. Nearly two years after Megan Barroso's murder, Vincent Sanchez's trial began on May 5th of 2003. That's actually yesterday. I'm recording this on May 6th. That was not planned to be so close together. But prosecutors argued that Vincent Sanchez wasn't just violent, he was methodical. He planned every attack with precision. He came into homes, mass, he binded his victims, and he even recorded this. The defense saw it a different way. They said, no, he was in rage. She was upset. He was unstable. He had mental health issues. And that's why he carried this out. It wasn't planned. So they did go back and forth. And there was a lot of people who came forward, of course, people who testified like Lindsay and how her life had changed ever since her best friend had

been murdered. And guess what? The defense decided to put her mental health on trial, because because they wanted to discredit her in so many ways. But what was ironic was that her mental health only deteriorated because of what happened to her best friend, which was Vincent's fault. It was terrible. I think one of the most important pieces of evidence that were brought out in trial was the broken rearview mirror in the ranger. When it was returned to lose, she testified that before she let him borrow the car

before July 4th, her rearview mirror was fine. But there had been a struggle inside that truck between Megan and Vincent. That meant she was still alive because there was no other reason it would have been so forcefully knocked off and broken like that. He told Luz he accidentally hit it with a golf club when he was putting them in his truck. No. It would have taken much more force like a kick from Megan as she was trying to get away. After five days of deliberation, the jury returned its decision. Guilty of first degree murder.

I can't even repeat on here what they brought up during the sentencing hearing. because you remember sentencing hearings are the prosecution brings bad things. Yes, he deserves death. Defense says, no, we want to humanize him. There is still value in his life. He should stay alive. All I'm going to say is that there was another brutal incident that occurred when he was only 22.

And at the time, he was living with his 18-year-old girlfriend and her 13-month-old daughter. I'm just going to leave it as there was an alleged fall that occurred while in his care, but it was much, much worse. Now, she survived, but it was dark. It was very dark, unspeakable things, okay? So, needless to say, they really thought that the punishment of death was warranted. And sure, his family came forward, they had a lot to say about his childhood, but nothing

they said, because everyone's had a past, right? I mean, saying, like, his dad was an alcoholic and he was violent and da-da-da, and the sisters and brothers came forward, and I understand that. We don't ever want to minimize what someone's gone through, but it doesn't excuse a willful action. It doesn't excuse someone deciding to take their life in that direction. And they brought up other things, like, he was young and things happened to him, so it might have made him see violence with women as, like, something that aroused him and whatnot.

But I'm always like, okay, how does that justify, you know, a lighter sentence? At the end, the jury recommended death for, for Vincent Sanchez. And when the verdict was read, he showed no emotion. He didn't yell, he didn't break down and cried, and didn't react at all. Investigators who worked the case later said that they were certain that if Vincent had not been caught,

he would have killed again. And even though he was given the death penalty, in 2006, California's death penalty system froze all executions, and as a result, Vincent Sanchez remains on death row at San Quentin State Prison, serving what has now become a life sentence. And at least he can never hurt. hurt anyone ever again. I can at least say that.

But is it ever justice? No. Because from Megan's family, it's never going to give them closure. Megan's mom and a bunch of her friends gathered at the site where Megan's remains had been found to celebrate what would have been her 21st birthday. And they did place a memorial bench there,

and you know what they had engraved on it? The plaque read, be aware, be careful, Look out for each other in memory of Megan Barroso, 1981 to 2001. And yes, be aware, be careful, look out for each other. But I feel Megan and everyone who loved her, her friends, and everyone they were looking out for her. And still, monsters are among us. I'm so sorry to her friends and loved ones, and I hope you always remember her. And I thank you all for being here for Megan's story.

See you in my next video. video. Bye.