3 Take Deals, Plead Guilty in Killing of Lemon Grove Man

Three men accused of murder in the 2012 shooting death of a Lemon Grove man will be doing time in prison, according to a spokeswoman for the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office. Each took plea bargains to avoid going before a jury.  

The defendants were charged with first-degree murder and other crimes for what prosecutors called “a drug robbery gone bad” that resulted in the killing of Avel Michael Edgar, 23, who was found shot in the head March 14, 2012, in a home on the 8200 block of Mount Vernon Street.  

Alfredo Hayes, 19, and Eugene Lucious Veal, 19, were arrested in San Diego two weeks after the crime and booked on murder, robbery, grand theft and drug charges. A third suspect, Dasaun Romann Roberts, 20, of San Diego, was taken into custody April 3, 2012, and jailed on the same charges, according to district attorney spokeswoman Tanya Sierra.

Veal, the accused shooter, pleaded guilty April 8 to voluntary manslaughter and is scheduled to be sentenced May 29 in the El Cajon Superior Court. He agreed to a term of 13 years and four months, according to Sierra.  

Roberts, who was on probation at the time of the shooting, pleaded guilty April 8 to drug and theft charges. He was sentenced to a jail term of 10 years and four months.  

Hayes pleaded guilty May 2 to second-degree murder and first-degree robbery, both with a gun-use allegation, Sierra said in an email to Lemon Grove Patch. He is scheduled to be sentenced July 22.

Prosecutors allege Veal and Hayes went to Edgar’s home the night of March 14 to buy a large amount of marijuana from him. Hayes showed a handgun during the transaction, and Edgar put the marijuana in a safe.  

According to the DA’s office, it was then that Veal began to pistol whip the victim and the gun fired. Edgar was fatally wounded in the head.