Riverside County Sheriff\'s Department Owen Skyler Shover & Gary Anthony Shover
Two brothers have been arrested in connection with Aranda Briones’ disappearance. Owen Skyler Shover, 18, and Gary Anthony Shover, 21, were arrested on Monday for Briones’ murder, the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department noted. Briones’ body has not been found.
1. Owen Shover Was Arrested on Suspicion of Murder, & Gary Shover Was Arrested on Suspicion of Second-Degree Murder & Conspiracy. They Were Arrested in Hesperia, California.
FacebookGary Shover
On Monday night, Owen Shover was arrested on suspicion of murder and his brother, Gary Shover, was arrested on suspicion of second-degree murder and conspiracy to commit a crime, ABC 7 reported. They are ineligible for bail, PE reported.
Gary Shover, 21, was arrested on February 11 just before midnight on Grevillea Ave. in Hesperia, California, according to public records. He is being held at the Southwest Detention Center on two felony charges.
Owen, 18, was arrested just before midnight on Grevillea St. in Hesperia, California at the same time as his brother, according to public records. He’s currently being held at the Robert Presley Detention Centre, records showed, and was charged with felony murder.
The Riverside County Sheriff’s Department noted that a SWAT team served a search warrant at about 10:30 p.m. on Monday night on the 16200 block of Grevillea Street in Hesperia. The two brothers were arrested then.
2. The District Attorney’s Office Alleged the Shovers Were ‘Lying-in-Wait’ for Briones
The District Attorney’s office told The Press-Enterprise that they filed a special circumstance alleging the brothers were lying-in-wait before killing Briones. Briones’ body has not been found, but evidence found in a suspect’s backyard has led officials to believe she was killed.
Online media reports indicated that Owen may have been Aranda Briones’ ex-boyfriend, Moreno Valley Matters and IE Prime shared on Facebook, but this was not correct and MVM later announced that the information was incorrect. Family members told The Press-Enterprise that they were acquaintances through Moreno Valley High.
Family members had said that someone named Owen claimed to be the last one to see Aranda, CBS Los Angeles reported.
3. Gary Shover’s Facebook Shows He Moved to the House Where He Was Arrested in 2017 & May Have Been Considering a Career in Medicine or Sociology
FacebookGary Shover
According to what he shared publicly on his Facebook page, Gary Shover worked at Lakedale Resort at Three Lakes and studied at Victor Valley College. In 2018 he posted that he “left Victor Valley College,” and he also commented “sociologist/psychologist/psychiatrist.” He doesn’t have many public posts on Facebook, except mentioning that he moved to Grevillia St. in Hesperia, California in June 2017. Back in 2014, he posted that he had been accepted to attend a Summer 2014 National Youth Leadership Forum for careers in medicine. He has at least one photo posted with his brother from 2011, eight years ago, in which he wrote that he was pictured with his younger brother Owen:
FacebokGary and Owen Shover in 2011
Owen Shover’s Facebook, which does not have a photo or much public information, indicates that he studied at Riverside City College and went to Canyon Springs High School.
4. Aranda Briones Has Not Been Seen Since a Friend Said She Got Into a Gray Sedan at the Moreno Valley Community Park. Surveillance Videos Did Not Confirm the Friend’s Story.
Authorities have not shared if they know what happened to Aranda Briones. Online reports circulating on social media that indicated a body might have been found were incorrect. Aranda was last seen on Sunday, January 13, when a friend dropped her off near Moreno Valley Community Park and said they saw her getting into a gray, four-door sedan. The family did not know who was driving. It’s not yet known if that friend was one of the arrested suspects. However, CBS Los Angeles reported that some family members had indicated that someone named Owen might have claimed to be the one who dropped off Aranda.
Here is a video of Briones’ uncle, Matt Horstkotte, talking about what happened:
Aranda’s brother, Daniel Briones, told ABC 7 that his sister was last seen near Moreno Valley Community Park on Sunday, January 13, about an hour east of Los Angeles. She was dropped off to spend time with friends.
A friend who dropped Briones said she got into a gray, four-door car, KCAL 9 reported. Her family doesn’t know who was driving the car. “After that, her phone was off,” said her uncle Matthew Horstkotte. The friend told investigators that he dropped her off around 6 p.m. on January 13.
Authorities were never able to verify Briones’ friend’s account, ABC News reported. The friend said they dropped her off at Moreno Valley Community Park around 6 p.m., but investigators could not see her on nearby surveillance cameras, KABC reported. Her brother said that after pulling footage, “It looks like nobody was dropped off between 6:00 and 6:30 EST.”
Briones’ uncle said someone has to know something. He told ABC 7: “Nowadays, you know teenagers want to cover up for a friend or someone says I don’t want to tell because I’m scared. But just come forward – the only person you’re hurting right now is Aranda.”
Her uncle told ABC 7 that he wondered if the friend was hiding something. “She did have a bad choice of friends, I’ll be honest, you know everybody does. Everybody makes mistakes, but you know one thing I want? I just want her home safe.”
Another strange clue came from Aranda’s cell phone, which may have indicated that she was in Rubidoux the night of January 13, her uncle told ABC 7. A missing persons post about Briones indicated she might have been seen at a 99 cent store that night, but it’s not clear if this has been confirmed.
The mother of one of Aranda’s friends said on Facebook that Aranda’s Snapchat stopped tracking her, and it was very out of character for Aranda to not communicate with her friends. “They are in contact constantly,” she said on Facebook. “This is totally out of character.” KCAL 9 reported that one of her friends saw on Snapchat that she was in the Riverdale area. When her friend asked her why she was in Riverdale, the location was turned off.
5. Aranda Was About To Get a Promotion at Work & Her Family Had Just Dealt with Her Grandmother’s Death
Briones worked at Moreno Valley Mall, where she was about to be promoted to a leadership role, Horstkotte told KCAL 9. “She cares about everyone and there’s like a hole in my heart ’cause she’s missing,” he said.
In an interview on January 30 (which you can watch above), her brother Daniel Briones, 18, said that everything seemed normal with his sister before she disappeared. He said she came home late Friday night and was feeling sick, and they talked some on Saturday. He said Sunday went by and nothing unusual happened until a friend texted him on Monday and asked if Briones had gotten home safe. That’s when Daniel checked her room and realized she wasn’t there. He and his grandfather went to the park, she wasn’t there, and they started making calls.
Daniel and Aranda are half-siblings, Daniel said in the Moreno Valley interview. He also shared that Aranda’s mom has serious health issues. “If she gets too worked up, she is at risk of a heart attack,” he said. That’s why she hasn’t appeared on interviews with media, he said.
Deborah Horstkotte, Aranda’s aunt, told Heavy that Aranda’s parents’ rights were terminated a long time ago. Her grandparents, Carl and Jeannie Horstkotte, had fostered and then adopted Aranda and her siblings. Aranda has three siblings: Daniel, Landy, and Adrianna.
Daniel said Aranda’s the type of person who’s friends with everyone. She was graduating as a junior, he said, and is really smart. “She always made room for other people even though she was a really busy person in real life,” he said in an interview that you can watch above.
Her aunt, Deborah Horstkotte, told Heavy that Aranda had a bright future ahead of her. “My husband is retired from the Navy and is a disabled Veteran,” she said. “We had hoped that one day Aranda might join the service, too. She was bright and in the gifted program in school. Our family is devastated beyond words. We are fortunate to have a strong support network of friends and family.”
Her uncle said in the interview with Moreno Valley Matters that the whole thing has been really hard on his dad (Aranda’s grandfather.) Deborah told Heavy that on top of everything else, Arand’s grandmother Jeannie she died unexpectedly just two years ago. In his interview with Moreno Valley, Aranda’s uncle Matt said her grandparents had been married for 44 years, and her grandmother’s death was devastating for the family.
Her legal guardian and grandfather, Carl Horstkotte, told ABC 7, “It’s been a living hell” since she disappeared.
A Facebook page was set up for anyone who wants to help find Briones.
Aranda is 5’4″ and weighs 110 pounds. Briones has brown hair, hazel/green eyes, and a “unique mark” on her chin. She has a nose piercing, a belly button piercing, and was wearing a white and blue jacket, dark jeans, and a dark shirt when she was last seen.
If you have any information, please call David Drexler at the Moreno Valley Police Department at 951-486-6700 or the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department after hours dispatch at 951-247-8700. You can also call an anonymous tip line at 951-247-8700.