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:
“Once one’s up against it, the precise manner of one’s death has obviously small importance.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)
“For man, maximum excitement is the confrontation of death and the skillful defiance of it by watching others fed to it as he survives transfixed with rapture.”
—Ernest Becker (1924–1974)