High-Profile Murder Trial Being Prosecuted By Riverside County DA

RIVERSIDE, CA — Prosecution testimony got underway Wednesday in the trial of a man accused of killing a 16-year-old Moreno Valley girl because she got him expelled from school and then hiding her body in the San Bernardino Mountains, where authorities have yet to find it.

Owen Skyler Shover, 23, of Hesperia is charged with first-degree murder and a special circumstance allegation of lying in wait for the death of Aranda Briones in 2019.

The prosecution and defense delivered opening statements Tuesday, and Riverside County District Attorney Mike Hestrin, who is prosecuting the case himself, called initial witnesses to the Riverside Hall of Justice on Wednesday.

Shover is being held without bail at the Byrd Detention Center in Murrieta.

His brother, 27-year-old Gary Anthony Shover of Hesperia, in March admitted being an accessory after the fact under a plea agreement with the District Attorney's Office. He had originally been charged with first-degree murder, but after a 2022 preliminary hearing, a judge dismissed the charge, and the accessory count was substituted for him alone. He was sentenced to 12 months' felony probation.

According to Hestrin's trial brief, Aranda and Shover attended Moreno Valley High School in the fall of 2017, and they ran in the same circles.

The victim was a "troubled" youth whose parents were absent, and she had been adopted by her grandfather, Carl Horskotte, and resided with him from age 3 at his home on Via Vargas Drive, according to the brief.

Hestrin said that on the morning of Nov. 7, 2017, Aranda decided to join her friends, including Shover, in Community Park, rather than attend classes at Moreno Valley High. A sheriff's school resource officer looking for truants spotted the teenagers in the park and went to make contact with them, prompting someone in the group to shout, "Police!" and all of the teens to flee in different directions. Shover had a small-caliber handgun in his possession and tossed it at Aranda, yelling for her to hide it, according to court papers.

The victim became frightened and immediately threw it into a drainage canal. However, the deputy spotted her in the act and later detained and questioned her, along with school administrators, at which point she disclosed that Shover had been the one with the gun and gave it to her, Hestrin said.

The matter came before the local school board in February 2018, and the board voted to expel Aranda and Shover from Moreno Valley High. She enrolled in a nearby continuation school, while Shover moved out of his mother's Moreno Valley home and relocated to his father's residence and enrolled in a continuation school in Hesperia. But he was incensed over being expelled and what he evidently perceived as Aranda's betrayal of trust, according to the brief.

Homicide detectives from the Riverside County Sheriff's Department later discovered a series of Snapchat, Facebook and other conversations initiated by the defendant from November 2018 to January 2019, during which he attempted to purchase a firearm, the brief said.

He eventually obtained one, investigators said.

On Jan. 12, 2019, Shover contacted Aranda via text, inviting her to join him the following day while he made drug deliveries and "robs drug dealers," the brief alleged. She agreed to meet him at Bayside Park, and the two connected shortly before 5 p.m. on Jan. 13, 2019. Hestrin alleged that with two of her friends watching, Aranda got into the defendant's Nissan Versa, and the two headed north toward Box Springs Mountain.

She posted several pictures to social media accounts within an hour, showing her and Shover in his car, expressing elation to be with her "homie," who was letting her do some of the driving, according to the brief.

Through mobile phone tower "pings," Moreno Valley's Citywide Camera System and security cameras mounted outside area homes, the occupants of the Nissan were tracked around Box Springs Mountain for roughly 20 minutes. Court papers said the vehicle turned north toward San Bernardino shortly before 6 p.m., in the direction of a mobile home park.

While en route, Shover contacted his brother via FB messenger, stating, "Be ready for tonight. Get shovels and lighter fluid ready," according to the brief.

The defendant retrieved Gary Shover from the mobile home park, and the two headed north into the San Bernardino Mountains via state Routes 138 and 18. Between 8:33 p.m. and 10:14 p.m., the defendant shut off his cell phone, making its signal unreadable. It returned to life after he reached his father's home at 16210 Grevillea St., prosecutors said.

In the ensuing weeks, when she didn't return home, Aranda's family and friends filed reports with the sheriff's department, believing she had met with foul play. The investigation was initially handled as a missing person inquiry, but it "became a homicide investigation (because detectives) found extensive and compelling evidence that the defendant meticulously planned and carried out the murder of Aranda," Hestrin wrote.

One of the salient points included a search of the Nissan, during which the blood detector Luminol was sprayed in the trunk, showing "the possible presence of a significant amount of blood that had pooled toward the bottom of the trunk, underneath the carpeting."

DNA was procured from the vehicle, and it was ultimately determined to be a match to Aranda, according to Hestrin.

Neither Owen or Gary Shover had prior convictions.