Three men convicted of murdering a Long Beach man and burying his body in the Arizona desert were sentenced Thursday to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Garret Cole, Juan Toscano and Javier Ontiveros were found guilty in August of first-degree murder and related charges in the 2022 killing of Taylor Poulin, a case that began with a drug deal gone bad and ended with a body buried hundreds of miles from where he was shot.
A Kern County jury convicted all three men in August on several charges, including first-degree murder, according to KGET 17 News. On Thursday, a judge also denied a defense motion from Toscano seeking a new trial before handing down the life sentences, which the Kern County District Attorney's Office confirmed. Special-circumstance findings that the murder occurred during a robbery were confirmed as part of the convictions, as reported by BakersfieldNow.
A Drug Deal Turns Deadly on Real Road
The case traces back to Sept. 23, 2022, when police responded to a report of suspicious circumstances in the 300 block of Real Road and found signs of foul play at the home. Officers noticed what appeared to be blood smeared on the driveway along with a strong odor of bleach, per the same account from BakersfieldNow. Prosecutors said the three defendants had set up a drug deal that year to rob Poulin and a second man, Edwin Menendez.
Menendez told investigators that he and Poulin had driven from the Los Angeles area to Bakersfield to buy lean, a drug mixed with promethazine and codeine, according to the prosecutor's account relayed by KGET. When the two men entered the Real Road home, Toscano and Cole drew guns, the prosecutor said. Poulin was shot at the house, and Menendez was reportedly held at gunpoint while the shooting happened, but he managed to escape the encounter.
Body Driven to the Arizona Desert
After the shooting, Cole, Ontiveros and two other men drove to Arizona to dispose of Poulin's body, while Toscano stayed behind to clean up the scene, officials said. BakersfieldNow's reporting added that the surviving victim had initially been put inside the trunk of the vehicle before he was able to escape. Human remains were later exhumed in the desert near Fort Mohave, Arizona, on Oct. 6, 2022, according to Oxygen.com.
Toscano reportedly told others that Poulin owed him $20,000, according to KGET's reporting on the case. Separately, in connection with the body's disposal, BakersfieldNow reported that Edrich Esquer Rubio pleaded no contest to first-degree robbery in concert with the other defendants.
Defense Says Poulin Pulled the Gun First
Defense attorneys for the three men argued a very different version of events at trial. They said Poulin had planned to rob the defendants and was the first to pull a gun, and that he was shot while wrestling for the weapon on the ground, per KGET's account of the defense's argument.
Earlier KGET coverage of the August verdicts noted that the three men faced life terms in prison, though a sentencing hearing had not yet been scheduled at that time. Bakersfield.com described the case as a drug deal gone bad almost four years before the convictions came down. Thursday's sentencing closes out a prosecution that began when Toscano was first arrested after police said he admitted shooting someone during a drug deal at the Real Road residence.
