Scammer
Banned
-- An Arizona jury could soon decide the fate of an anti-illegal immigration activist convicted of killing a Latino man and his 9-year-old daughter during a May 2009 vigilante raid.
Shawna Forde was convicted Monday on eight counts, including two counts of murder for the shooting deaths of Raul Flores and his daughter, Brisenia, and the attempted murder of the child's mother, Gina Gonzales.
The child and her father were American-born U.S. citizens.
The jury also convicted Forde on two counts of aggravated assault, and one count each of burglary, armed robbery and aggravated robbery.
The jury could begin deliberating on the death penalty case as early as Friday afternoon, the Pima County Attorney's office said. Her alleged accomplices, Albert Robert Gaxiola and Jason Eugene Bush, are scheduled to go on trial later this year.
During the trial, prosecutors portrayed Forde as the ringleader of the hit squad, and said she had planned the raid and the murders to steal weapons, money and drugs to finance a new anti-illegal immigration outfit.
The trio picked Flores' home in Arivaca, prosecutors said, because of a claim made by Gaxiola they would find drugs there.
While Flores had a history of drug-related offenses, none were found in the house.
Posing as border patrol and law enforcement officers, Forde, Gaxiola and Bush, whom prosecutors identified as the gunman, showed up at Flores' home after midnight, several hours after the family had returned from a shopping trip in Tucson to buy shoes for their daughter for summer camp.
Brisenia was sleeping on the couch with her puppy when the group demanded to be let into the home. They accused Flores of harboring illegal aliens and said the house was surrounded by agents.
Once inside, the gunman shot Flores in the chest and Gonzales in the leg. Brisenia was later shot as she pleaded for her life.
Jewelry taken from the Flores home was later found in Forde's possession. Text messages discovered on her phone also implicated her in the crime.
