Transient sex offender pleads guilty for murdering Salinas woman
A transient sex offender pleaded guilty to second-degree murder for the death of a Salinas woman.
On Oct. 12, 2017, Shantel Evela Llamas, 30 was found strangled to death inside a room at the Motel 6 in North Salinas.
Police identified Richard Simmons, 52, a the person who checked into the room where Llamas’ body was found.
“Surveillance video shows Simmons entering the motel room at 1:45 p.m. on Oct. 11. Ms. Llamas then entered the room at 10:26 p.m. The video then showed Simmons walking out of the room at 11:45 p.m. No one else came in or out of the room until Salinas police officers entered and discovered her body the next morning,” said the Monterey County District Attorney’s Office in a written statement.
On Nov. 2, 2017, Simmons was found sitting in his car at Ocean Beach in San Francisco. He was arrested on an outstanding warrant for failure to register as a sex offender. The District Attorney’s Office said Simmons’ status as a sex offender stemmed from an attack on a woman in a bathroom at Hartnell College in Salinas on Oct. 15, 2004.
On Nov. 27, 2018, the Department of Justice confirmed a DNA match between evidence found inside the motel room and Simmons.
Simmons pleaded guilty on Tuesday to second degree murder. He will be sentenced on June 11, at 8:45 a.m. in Department 6 of the Monterey Superior Court. He will receive a sentence of 35 years to life in prison.
