Last of 4 men who kidnapped and murdered Northern California teens gets 15-to-life term

Jonathan Froste, the last of the four Yolo County men who meted out the brutal revenge kidnapping and murders of two Woodland teens in 2016, was sentenced Friday to 15 years to life in state prison.

Elijah Moore, 17, and Enrique Rios, 16, were friends and classmates at Cesar Chavez School in Woodland in October 2016. They were kidnapped and murdered weeks apart after, Yolo County prosecutors said, Moore held up Froste’s older brother, David Froste, and two of Froste’s friends at the point of a pellet gun in the parking lot of a fast-food restaurant. The take: 3 ounces of marijuana.

The brutality exacted by David Froste, 31, friends Chandale Shannon and Jesus Campos in response shocked the community. In the space of weeks in October and November 2016, Rios was shot to death and Moore, a day after his 17th birthday, was bound at the hands and feet, bludgeoned to death, then shot in the head.

The youths’ bodies were burned and buried in a shallow grave along a remote stretch of riverbank along the Sacramento River near Knights Landing.

Yolo Superior Court Judge David Rosenberg, who handed down Jonathan Froste’s sentence Friday, said the case represented some of the most heinous and evil acts he had seen in his 20 years on the bench.

Moore’s and Rios’ remains have yet to be found, despite what prosecutors called “monumental” efforts by investigators, archaeologists, and search-and-rescue teams to locate their bodies.

The Frostes, Shannon and Campos were arrested on suspicion of kidnapping and first-degree murder in the boys’ slayings in 2018.

Jonathan Froste, 26, brokered an early deal with prosecutors for the 15 years-to-life term in exchange for information and testimony against his older brother at trial in 2018; and against Shannon and Campos in their murder trials earlier this year in Yolo Superior Court.

David Froste is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole. Yolo County jurors in May convicted Shannon, 25, of Winters, and 22-year-old Campos of Woodland, in the boys’ slayings. Jurors found Shannon guilty of first-degree murder, kidnapping and special circumstances of multiple murders and kidnapping during the course of a murder.

Campos was convicted of second-degree murder of Rios; and first-degree murder of Moore, along with kidnapping and special circumstances of multiple murders and kidnapping during the course of a murder.

Campos and Shannon are also serving life sentences without the possibility of parole in the teens’ deaths.

“While appreciative of Jonathan Froste providing information regarding these horrific murders, the families of both victims spoke to how Jonathan Froste was still culpable and responsible in the acts that ultimately stole the lives of two young men,” Yolo County Chief Deputy District Attorney Jonathan Raven said in a statement following the Friday sentencing.