Luis Aurelio Morales, now 31, pleaded no contest to voluntary manslaughter and was immediately sentenced, May 16, said Venusse Dunn, spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office. Morales also admitted an aggravating factor of personally using a firearm.
Charges of murder, assault with a firearm on a person and felon in possession of a firearm were dismissed as a result of the plea deal, according to court records.
Morales has been in custody since his June 28, 2018 arrest, according to inmate records. Morales was arrested 10 days after Kayla Yolanda Huerta of Wilmington was found dead in a car after it rolled into a wall in the 700 block of West Sepulveda Street.
Los Angeles officers were called to the area about 2:30 a.m., June 18, police said. Despite the efforts of paramedics, Huerta, who was a mother of a then-3-year-old girl, was pronounced dead at the scene.
Police said Morales and Huerta were among a group of people hanging out when Morales “became upset at something that was said. The suspect pulled out a handgun and shot Kayla” before fleeing on foot. She died of a gunshot wound to the head, according to a medical examiner’s report.
What was said among the group that led to the shooting was not known.
A Los Angeles police detective said after Morales’ arrest that the car Huerta was in was moving when she was shot. Police believed Morales and Huerta did not know each other and that they had met for the first time that night.
Huerta was in high school and had plans to go to trade school to support her daughter, her cousin Clarissa Hernando wrote in a GoFundMe set up to help with funeral costs.