“Best friend” murderer gets 80-years-to-Life

Yesterday afternoon, November 1, Judge Richard Monroy gave Shyrehl Joseph Wesley, now 22, the maximum sentence for killing his “best friend” a year ago.

Wesley was sentenced to 80-years-to-life. The murderer was out on parole for the 2014 armed robbery of a gun store in El Cajon at the time he shot his friend to death.

D’Angelo Maurice Charon, 21, was found on the side of a road in a remote part of Vista on July 12, 2017 with three bullet holes.

Before he was sentenced, Wesley read a prepared statement for three minutes. He called the victim his “brother” and asked the judge to “take into consideration the bond” he had with D’Angelo. Wesley claimed that he gave his friend the clothes off his back and declared “I will continue to fight for justice through every stereotype.”

In his final words, Wesley asked the judge to use his discretion and ignore the special allegations of prison prior and strike prior and use of firearm in commission of murder, and other “sentencing enhancements.” Wesley asked to be sent into a “youthful offender program” that would separate him from the regular prison population and give him a “better future.”

Judge Monroy seemed annoyed when Wesley suggested the judge might be influenced by his hair style or tattoos or music lyrics, and the judge told him “I don’t care about any of those things.”

The judge commented that there was one version of events which Wesley professed while he was in the witness box, but the jury believed the evidence and case presented by prosecutor Keith Watanabe. And Judge Monroy told Wesley, “Genuinely in my heart I believe you did it.”

The judge commented that co-defendant Chevis’ life was “so significantly changed in a negative manner” because of Wesley that, “Another life was destroyed that evening.”

Sheffah Chevis, now 19, will be sentenced by the same judge on December 7.

The State of California paid the funeral expenses for the victim, $5,544.95, and both defendants have been ordered to repay the State.