MURRIETA – A Home Gardens gang member who helped kill an outsider the defendant lured to his death was sentenced Friday to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

A jury in Murrieta convicted 24-year-old Eric “Silent” Chaparro of first-degree murder in June, finding the charges true due to special circumstances: He killed for the benefit of a criminal street gang and lay in wait during the 2020 death of 25-year-old Antonio “Omen” Anaya.

During a hearing at the Southwest Justice Center, Riverside County Superior Court Judge Stephen Gallon imposed the sentence required under state law for the crimes.

According to the public prosecutor’s office, an inexplicable dispute arose in January 2020 between Anaya and his fellow members of the Corona Varrio Locos Matadores.

Chaparro was one of Anaya’s former co-workers and the two got along well, according to a prosecutor’s report.

On Jan. 26, 2020, gang leadership decided Anaya was a liability, and one of the members seeking a leadership position, then-15-year-old Horacio Monroy, volunteered to be a contract killer with Chaparro’s help, the report said.

Monroy’s case was heard in juvenile court, but no decision was possible.

Court documents show that he and Chaparro spent most of the afternoon of Jan. 26 driving around in Chaparro’s Toyota Scion, waiting for an opportunity to confront Anaya, who eventually went to a gang meeting place at 3710 Windsong Street, near Harlow Avenue, in Home Gardens.

Prosecutors said Chaparro persuaded Anaya to leave the house and go to the driveway to talk to him.

Monroy was said to have been hiding in nearby bushes, waiting for an opportunity to open fire with a .40-caliber semi-automatic pistol. According to prosecutors, Anaya immediately became suspicious of Chaparro’s motives and pulled out a 9mm pistol, at which point Monroy began firing his weapon.

Chaparro ran toward his Toyota while Monroy allegedly fired several shots, seriously wounding Anaya, who returned fire, hitting Chaparro’s vehicle before crashing at the end of the driveway, according to the charges.

The defendants fled while residents of surrounding homes called 911.

Anaya was taken to Riverside Community Hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival.

Investigators from the sheriff’s Central Homicide Unit spent nearly seven months piecing together the events, relying on statements from local residents, surveillance video from businesses in the immediate vicinity of Windsong, and Chaparro’s cellphone records, gathering enough evidence to obtain arrest warrants in August 2020.

Chaparro had been convicted of a misdemeanor for drunken driving, but had no previous felony convictions recorded against him in Riverside County.

Information about his co-defendant was not available.