Death
On November 9, 2002, Santana was fatally shot one time in the head while sitting in the passenger seat of a parked car in Crenshaw. He was 26 years old. Santana was buried on November 18, 2002 at Saint Raymond's Cemetery in The Bronx, New York.
Damien Andre Gates was later convicted of the first-degree murder of Santana and the attempted murder of another man in the car, and was sentenced to three consecutive life sentences plus 70 years in prison. Brandon Douglas Bynes received a 23-year sentence after pleading guilty to voluntary manslaughter and assault with a deadly weapon. An officer involved in the case testified that Monique King, reportedly Gates' girlfriend and aged 15 at the time of Santana's death, falsely claimed that Santana had tried to rape her, which prompted Gates and Bynes to attack the car. King received eight years in juvenile custody.
Read more about this topic: Merlin Santana
Famous quotes containing the word death:
“The One remains, the many change and pass;
Heaven’s light forever shines, Earth’s shadows fly;
Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass,
Stains the white radiance of Eternity,
Until Death tramples it to fragments.”
—Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)
“It is a strange, strange fate, and now, as I stand face to face with death I feel just as if they were going to kill a boy. For I feel like a boy—and my hands so free from blood and my heart always so compassionate and pitiful that I cannot comprehend how anyone wants to hang me.”
—Roger Casement (1864–1916)
“And death i think is no parenthesis”
—E.E. (Edward Estlin)