Police: Girlfriend helped hide gun after Telegraph homicide
Police say Marianna Romero returned to the crime scene with her boyfriend, Andy Gutierrez-Rebollo, to retrieve one of the murder weapons.
An El Sobrante woman was charged Monday with trying to help cover up her boyfriend's involvement in the fatal shooting of a Berkeley divinity student on Telegraph Avenue in October, The Berkeley Scanner has learned.
Four people are now facing charges in the case, court records show: Michael Monrroy-Ramos and Andy Gutierrez-Rebollo were charged with murder in late October.
Authorities say two women tried to help the men get away with the crime. Both have now been charged as accessories after the fact.
Jessyca Monrroy, Michael's sister, was arrested and charged alongside the men in late October.
On Monday, 24-year-old Marianna Romero of El Sobrante was added to the docket.
Marianna Romero. Berkeley Police
Police say Romero returned to the crime scene with her boyfriend, Gutierrez-Rebollo, to retrieve one of the murder weapons.
On Oct. 8, Isamaeli Mata'afa, a 29-year-old youth pastor, and three relatives — ages 22, 24 and 28 — had been walking together on Telegraph Avenue near UC Berkeley when conflict erupted at about 1 a.m.
According to charging papers, Monrroy-Ramos and Gutierrez-Rebollo provoked a fight with the three relatives and "were involved in a brief physical confrontation."
Mata'afa was not part of the conflict but did try to break it up.
Police say Monrroy-Ramos and Gutierrez-Rebollo pulled out guns and opened fire on Mata'afa and his relatives as the group walked away.
Mata'afa was taken to Highland Hospital where he was pronounced dead.
Emilie Raguso
Police used phone records to determine that Gutierrez-Rebollo had gone to Romero's home in El Sobrante after the shooting, according to court papers.
At 9:20 a.m., about eight hours after the homicide, the pair returned to Telegraph and Durant, police wrote.
Video surveillance captured them "canvassing the scene," police wrote: "Gutierrez-Rebollo and Romero then together retrieve a firearm from the bushes."
Romero was also with Gutierrez-Rebollo when police arrested him in Oakland, police wrote.
At the time, she told police she did not know anything about the Telegraph Avenue shooting, according to court papers.
She later admitted she had known about the shooting and had gone to Berkeley to help retrieve the gun, police wrote in charging papers.
As of publication time, Romero remained in custody, according to jail records online. Her next court date was not listed.
The other three defendants are scheduled to enter a plea in the case Dec. 6 at Wiley W. Manuel Courthouse in Oakland.
According to BPD, both men "admitted to the shooting. Monrroy admitted to having knowledge of the homicide and aiding Monrroy-Ramos and Gutierrez-Rebollo avoid detection and arrest after the crime."
See complete coverage of the case. The Berkeley Scanner will continue to share developments as they happen.
