A steamy morning inside a hot tub turned deadly for one Southern California couple.
This week, two men affiliated with a notorious street gang were convicted on multiple felony counts for their coordinated attack on the pair in Lake Forest in October 2018, authorities said. The gruesome ambush didn’t end until one victim had been chased through his apartment building, and his head pierced with a machete.
Mission Viejo residents Jose Rafael Andrademembreno, 29, and Edwin Diaz, 25, were convicted by a jury Tuesday of three felony counts each for killing Marco Morales in the early hours of Oct. 1, 2018, the Orange County district attorney’s office said in a news release.
Morales, and his then-18-year-old girlfriend, Jessica Rodriguez, were enjoying their apartment’s Jacuzzi when, around 3 a.m., Andrademembreno and Diaz came to execute the planned killing, according to text messages shown in court.
Morales, who tried to defend himself with a patio chair, was stabbed multiple times with a machete-style knife, a weapon of choice for the street gang MS-13, according to a Times report. Andrademembreno and Diaz allegedly shouted their allegiance to MS-13 — “Mara Salvatrutcha!” — while stabbing Morales, the Orange County Register reported. He was stabbed more than 18 times.
Still, he managed to escape, running through the building and screaming for help as he bled out, prosecutors say. Andrademembreno and Diaz chased closely behind with machetes in hand. The pair eventually caught up to Morales and began hacking at his arm and head, the blade eventually piercing his skull.
Morales’ body was discovered by a neighbor hours later, according to the district attorney’s office. Accompanying the two men was Xiomara Berrios, Diaz’s 18-year-old sister, who was dating Andrademembreno at the time. Berrios allegedly stabbed Morales’ girlfriend with a pocketknife. She survived.
Berrios was charged with three felony counts but pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in exchange for testifying at the trial, the district attorney’s office said.
After the killing, Andrademembreno and Diaz laughed as they ran back into their getaway car, according to witness testimony.
Morales was not a gang member, prosecutors said.
Orange County sheriff’s investigators arrested Andrademembreno and Diaz that same day. Officials found traces of Morales’ blood on Andrademembreno’s jeans and Berrios’ shoes. Diaz was arrested on Oct. 5. He was found washing his bloody clothes in a laundromat after reading an article about the arrest of his sister and her boyfriend, prosecutors said.
“The most terrifying monster is not the one under our beds but the human being who finds joy in inflicting violence on others,” Orange County Dist. Atty. Todd Spitzer said in a statement. “The callousness and calculation involved in this murder was designed to brutalize their victim until his very last breath while striking fear in everyone who witnessed it.”
Andrademembreno and Diaz were each convicted of one felony count of first-degree murder with the special circumstance of lying in wait, one felony count of conspiracy to commit murder, and one felony enhancement of personal use of a deadly weapon.
They face a maximum sentence of life without the possibility of parole, the district attorney’s office said. Their sentencing hearing will take place Jan. 23, 2026.
