‘You executed him’: Tijuana man sentenced to life for hostage-taking killing of San Diego teen

San Diego resident Miguel Anthony Rendon was just 18 years old when he was abducted, tortured and killed in May 2020 by a group of young men in Tijuana. The gunman who shot him five times in the head and left his body in a trash-filled ravine was also 18 and still attending a Tijuana high school.

On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge William Hayes sentenced the convicted killer, Brian Alexis Patron Lopez, to life in federal prison, telling Patron that he ruined his own life when he took Rendon’s.

“You executed him … It was cold-blooded,” Hayes said. “I think you had no idea what you were doing to yourself that day.”

Rendon’s mother told Patron, now 24, that a lifetime in custody — there is no parole in the federal justice system — will give him a taste of her suffering.

“As this man is sentenced to life today, I want him to understand that we are living a life sentence, too,” the mother said during a victim impact statement. “I want this man to carry the weight of what he did for the rest of his life.”

A San Diego federal jury convicted Patron in March on charges of intentional killing while engaged in drug trafficking, hostage taking resulting in death and conspiracy to take hostages resulting in death. The two hostage-taking charges both carried mandatory minimum ...