Marquise McGlown was arrested on a parole violation just 2-days after Shanae Wesley perished in a Halloween 2012 fire in her Murrieta apartment. A neighbor rescued Wesley’s 3-year-old son from the flaming apartment. McGlown, 25, was also charged with burglary and rape. Prosecutors say he fled from the murder scene in Wesley’s car after setting the fire to cover up the crimes. McGlown pleaded guilty to all charges. He will get a no-parole prison term at his sentencing August 7th.
Marquise McGlown enters a courtroom at the Southwest Justice Center in French Valley Thursday, Oct. 17, for the first day of his preliminary hearing. A Hemet man accused of raping and killing a 23-year-old Murrieta woman on Halloween then setting fire to her apartment while her 3-year-old son was inside was held to answer on all charges Friday, Oct. 18. Marquise McGlown, 23, is charged with murder, arson, attempted murder and theft of the woman’s car, court records show. He has pleaded not guilty. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. The preliminary hearing to determine whether there is enough evidence for McGlown to stand trial got underway Thursday at the SouthwestJusticeCenter in FrenchValley. Judge Michael Rushton, commenting on the great amount of circumstantial evidence against McGlown, made his ruling Friday after further testimony from a forensic pathologist and a fire investigator. Shanae Wesley’s body – burnt beyond recognition – was found in her bedroom after firefighters extinguished a blaze in her Hancock Avenue apartment about 6:45 a.m. Oct. 31, authorities said. An off-duty firefighter who lived upstairs rescued her 3-year-old son from the burning apartment before Murrieta firefighters arrived. Because her body was so badly burned, coroner’s officials could not pinpoint how Wesley died. Though a forensic pathologist hired by prosecutors to review the case said strangulation or suffocation seemed likely. The coroner’s office report was the topic of intense discussion during the hearing Friday morning, in part because of a mistake by the RiversideCounty forensic pathologist who performed the autopsy. Allison Hunt testified she erroneously concluded in her report that Wesley was alive when the fire began, but later discovered she had misread the results of a critical lab report. Defense attorneys Richard Briones-Colman and Jeff Zimel said in court that while McGlown admitted stealing Wesley’s car and having sex with her, the sex was consensual. Despite testimony to the contrary, they suggested McGlown did not know the toddler was in the apartment and they raised the possibility that other men with whom Wesley interacted in the hours before her death might have killed her. Wesley had met McGlown through a mutual friend – Rodney Piper – a matter of hours before her death, Piper testified Thursday. She and a girlfriend had gone out to a Temecula club and ran into Piper and McGlown by chance. Piper, who had dated Wesley when they were teens, said she asked him to come over to her apartment. McGlown came along, thinking Wesley’s friend would be there, he said. Instead, McGlown ended up waiting alone while Wesley and Piper went off to her bedroom, Piper said. When Piper came out, it appeared McGlown was gone. Piper said he assumed McGlown had gotten a ride elsewhere, so he left. As it turned out, prosecutor Burke Strunsky said, McGlown was on the patio of Wesley’s apartment watching as Piper drove away. Jason Patterson, the neighbor who rescued Wesley’s son, testified that he smelled burning plastic about 6:30 a.m. Smoke was coming from Wesley's apartment and he could see flames in the middle of the master bedroom, he said. Patterson crawled through the smoke-filled apartment and found the toddler coughing in a bedroom. When interrogated by police a couple of days later, McGlown said that he had sex with Wesley and, at first, claimed he hitchhiked back to the Hemet area, a detective testified. Later, McGlown showed police fingernail scratches on his chest and admitted having sex with Wesley and taking her car. Police found the car in Hemet. The driver’s seat upholstery had been cut out and there were streak marks around the door handle, Martin said. Surveillance footage from a Hemet Walmart about 8 a.m. Oct. 31 showed McGlown buying cleaner, paper towels and a knife. Friends and family of Wesley have described her as a single mother attending nursing school and working two jobs to support her son.