As we near the end of 2018, Z107.7 is reviewing some of the top stories of 2018.
A Twentynine Palms man was sentenced to five years in prison for setting a fire that damaged the historic Oasis of Mara at Joshua Tree National Park. George Graham started the fire on March 26 by igniting a palm frond with a cigarette lighter. The fire burned several palm trees but did not damage any structures.
A teenager from Yucca Valley, Chase Bottroff, was killed and another injured after they fell off of a car that they were “hood surfing” on in Morongo Valley in September.
A Twentynine Palms woman pleaded guilty in November to two counts of attempted murder and child endangerment after she tried to kill herself and her two daughters in September. Cindy Vang, 31, drove away from her home on the Marine Corps base and intentionally crashed her car on Morongo Road near Raymond Way in Twentynine Palms.
John Jeter of Joshua Tree was sentenced in July to 15 years in prison for shaking a baby so hard that she went into a coma in 2014.
Managing editor Tami Roleff has this story about a Joshua Tree man who was killed by deputies after the man shot his former girlfriend…
Sheriff’s deputies shot and killed Ray Wyatt, 58, on May 21 after he shot and killed his former girlfriend, Ronda Ebeling, 23, in a vacant lot near Yucca Trail and La Contenta Road on the border of Yucca Valley and Joshua Tree. Deputies were called to the scene by a friend of Ebeling who was on the phone with her and heard her screaming. Wyatt shot Ebeling when deputies arrived and then fled on foot. Deputies found him hiding under a bush, and shot him, killing him. Ronda Ebeling died at the hospital of her gunshot wounds.
