Fourth man pleads guilty in U.S. 280 slayings

Published 4:22 pm Friday, January 20, 2012

By NICOLE LOGGINS / Staff Writer

Torre Jovan Gholston will spend 15 years in prison after pleading guilty to two counts of murder in relation to the 2008 slaying of five men at a U.S. 280 apartment complex.

Torre Jovan Gholston

Gholston is the fourth man to plead guilty in the slaying of five other men in Aug. 2008. He is one of six men charged with murder in the Cahaba Lakes complex slayings.

Juan Francisco Castaneda, Alejandros Castaneda, Christopher Scott Jones, Derrick Renone Green,and Jaime Duenas-Rodriguez were also arrested and charged with murder.

Jones and the Castaneda brothers have all plead guilty to lesser murder charges, as a result both Alejandros Castaneda and Jones received 25 years behind bars.

According to previous reports, the six men killed five other men in a murder-for-hire plot over more than $450,000 in missing drug money.

Killed were Angel Horacio Vega-Gonzalez, Gustavo Vega-Gonzalez, Ezequiel Rebollar-Terevan, Jaime Echeverra and Armando Ibarra Mendoza.

Police discovered the bodies inside a unit at Cahaba Lakes apartments on Hunt Cliff road. They had been beaten, bound with duct tape and electrocuted with their throats slit after they were killed.

Gholston is currently being held at the Shelby County Jail.