Frank Irwine, 29, and Kristian Dailey, 34, were both convicted on Sept. 30 of first-degree murder for the death of Shavan Boone of San Francisco on Nov. 2, 2006.
In addition to murder, jurors found Irwine guilty of the special circumstance of committing a murder during forcible oral copulation and Dailey guilty of the special circumstance of committing a murder during a robbery.
Prosecutor Stacie Pettigrew said during their trial that Dailey, Irwine and a third man, 25-year-old Terrance Anderson, raped, robbed and killed Boone on Nov. 2, 2006.
Pettigrew said Boone was shot in the back of her head "execution style" and then dumped in a trashcan strewn among garbage in a creek bed in the 5700 block of Trask Street in East Oakland, a block away from Anderson's home, where it was found two days later.
Anderson was slated to be prosecuted separately but last Oct. 14 he pleaded no contest to first-degree murder and is expected to receiver a term of 25 years to life in state prison when he's sentenced on April 11. Prosecutors dismissed the special circumstances allegations against him, which could have resulted in a life sentence.
Boone lived in San Francisco, worked at a Goodwill store and was raising a four-year-old son by herself, according to Pettigrew.
The son, who is now 11, said in a letter read aloud by Pettigrew today, that, "I miss my mom very much and want to know why these men hurt her. You could have just taken her money and left but you had to kill her. I hope you are sorry for what you did."
Boone's sister, Makeisha Williams, told Irwine and Dailey, "I question why you had to beat her like that, shoot her and do her like that."
Williams said, "I have no mercy for anyone who had anything to do with this."
But Dailey's sister, Kesney Muhammad, said Dailey is "an innocent man and told Alameda County Superior Court Judge Morris Jacobson, who presided over the case, "You failed me and my brother."
Pettigrew told jurors during the trial that they might conclude from the evidence in the case that Boone was a prostitute but she nevertheless doesn't believe that Boone had consensual sex with any of the three men who were accused of murder in connection with her death.
Boone never stayed out all night and wanted to get home that evening to take care of her son, who was being babysat by a neighbor and friend, Pettigrew said.
The prosecutor said DNA evidence overwhelmingly proved that both Irwine and Anderson had sex with Boone and a video from an ATM machine in downtown Oakland and cellphone records connect all three men to the robbery of Boone and her death, Pettigrew said.
But attorneys for Irwine and Dailey maintained throughout the case that although their clients interacted with Boone the night she was killed there was no evidence they killed her.
Irwine's attorney, Ray Plumhoff, said although DNA evidence shows that Irwine had sex with Boone there's no evidence that the sex was forced and there's no proof he played a role in her death.
Noting that prosecutors didn't charge anyone with personally using a gun to kill Boone, Plumhoff said today that authorities never determined why she was killed, who killed her and where she was killed.
Dailey's attorney, Darryl Stallworth, said he doesn't think Dailey had anything to do with Boone's death because no witnesses or evidence placed him at the scene of her murder.
Pettigrew admitted after the hearing today that Dailey probably wasn't at the scene of Boone's death but said he still deserved to be convicted of murder under the felony murder rule because he was involved in robbing her and she believes that the robbery ultimately resulted in Boone's death.
Pettigrew said at the hearing that about three weeks after Irwine and Dailey were convicted authorities obtained a letter in which Irwine said he was pimping young women on the street in an operation he runs from his cell at the Santa Rita Jail in Dublin.
In the letter, according to Pettigrew, Irwine said his girlfriend is running the operation and "I call the shots from here."
Pettigrew said Irwine said in his letter that he's a gang member and a gang partner is acting as "his muscle" for the operation.
Jacobson accepted Irwine's letter into the record, saying, "I find it relevant" concerning Irwine's background and his attitude toward crime.
