Two men accused of killing an Alpine grandmother inside her mobile home last year were found guilty of first degree murder on Tuesday. One of the men is the victim's grandson.
A jury has found Brandon Allen Hayes guilty of killing his 73-year-old grandmother Eunice Cothron. Hayes' friend Jeffery Carl Reed, who was also arrested in connection to the crime, was also found guilty of murder by a separate jury.
Cothron was found dead in her mobile home in the 2400-block of Alpine Boulevard on May 16, 2009.
The juries also found Hayes and Reed guilty of robbery and burglary in the first degree. Reed was also found guilty of carjacking.
After the murder in 2009, Reed and Hayes fled to Mexico. Five days after the murder, both men were caught as they tried to re-enter the United States at the San Ysidro border crossing.
Cothron was remembered by her friends as a wonderful, church-going woman who had more than 20 grandchildren.
“She loved him [Brandon] the way she loved her entire family and wanted to do everything in her power to help him," said Cothron's minister Tim Truscott. "It's hard to find words to adequately describe the gentleness, the just plain kindness of her as a human-being."
The sentencing hearing for Hayes and Reed will be set Tuesday afternoon for a later date.
