A man will spend the rest of his life behind bars after a jury convicted him of first-degree murder in the 2022 shooting death of 59-year-old Ronald Ray McKinney, a killing prosecutors say was ordered by a woman who believed McKinney had stolen drugs from her. Adrian Salgado Carranza, 48, was sentenced to 71 years and four months to life in state prison on charges that included first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit a crime.
According to the San Diego Union-Tribune, Carranza was convicted by an El Cajon Superior Court jury before the lengthy sentence was handed down. McKinney's body was discovered off the roadway in the 3500 block of Millar Ranch Road in unincorporated Spring Valley around 7 a.m. on January 23, 2022, after hikers came across it, per the San Diego County Sheriff's Department. The sheriff's office noted at the time that it ruled the death a homicide while withholding the preliminary cause of death to protect the integrity of the investigation.
Four-Month Manhunt Ends in Late-Night Arrests
It took nearly four months for investigators to make arrests. San Diego County Sheriff's deputies executed search warrants late at night on May 16, 2022, taking Carranza into custody at a home in the 1400 block of Broadway in El Cajon and arresting Brandyce Blanche Cuesta-Marquez at a home in the 3900 block of Conrad Drive in Spring Valley, the sheriff's department reported. Carranza was booked into San Diego Central Jail, while Cuesta-Marquez, then 32, was booked into the Las Colinas Detention and Reentry Facility in Santee — the county's primary detention and reentry center for female inmates.
Preliminary hearing testimony later laid out the prosecution's theory of how the killing unfolded. According to the sandiegouniontribune.com account, Cuesta-Marquez provided Carranza with the handgun and instructed him to kill McKinney because she believed he had stolen drugs from her.
Two Very Different Outcomes for Co-Defendants
The paths the co-defendants took through the justice system diverged sharply. Cuesta-Marquez, now 37, pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and was sentenced to 24 years in state prison. Carranza instead took his case to trial, where the El Cajon Superior Court jury convicted him on the more severe charges, leading to his far longer sentence.
Much of that length comes from sentencing enhancements layered on top of the base murder conviction. Under California Penal Code Section 12022.53, using or discharging a firearm during a violent felony like murder triggers mandatory consecutive prison enhancements ranging from 10 years up to 25 years to life, according to the California Office of the Attorney General. A first-degree murder conviction alone carries a base term of 25 years to life before any enhancements are added, which helps explain how Carranza's aggregate sentence climbed to 71 years and four months to life.
Case Reflects East County's Sheriff-Run Justice System
The trial and sentencing played out at the East County Regional Center in El Cajon, the San Diego County Superior Court facility that handles felony cases from East County communities including Spring Valley, Jamul, and El Cajon, and which serves more than 500,000 residents across the region. Because Spring Valley is unincorporated, it has no municipal police department of its own; instead, major violent crime cases like McKinney's homicide fall to the San Diego County Sheriff's Department Homicide Unit, which investigates homicides across all unincorporated county territory.
