Las Vegas man pleads guilty but mentally ill in murder of grandmother

A 30-year-old Las Vegas man accused of shooting his grandmother in the head and burying her body in two storage containers in the Nye County desert pleaded guilty but mentally ill to a murder charge on Friday.

Matthew Ayala entered what is known as an Alford plea, which means he admitted only that prosecutors had enough evidence to prove his guilt, during a hearing Friday in front of District Judge Tierra Jones.

He also faced a robbery with a deadly weapon charge, but the plea deal only addressed the first-degree murder count, court records show.

Ayala was charged with murder with a deadly weapon in January 2021 after police found the body of his grandmother, Yolanda Ayala, buried in Amargosa Valley. Authorities found her body through location data on Matthew Ayala’s cellphone, prosecutor Marc DiGiacomo said Friday.

“Based upon that, the police go out to the desert, they find a shallow grave with (his) grandma placed inside two bins filled with Christmas ornaments,” DiGiacomo said.

Matthew Ayala was living with his grandmother, but she was “starting to get scared of him” and was planning to move in with Matthew Ayala’s mother, DiGiacomo said. Her family became worried for her safety when Matthew Ayala drove to his mother’s house on Jan. 2, 2021, and said his grandmother had died in their northwest valley apartment.

Authorities found no record of the woman’s death or hospitalization, police have said.

Neighbors reported that sometime around Dec. 31, they heard loud noises coming from the apartment and saw a man rolling a dolly with a large box out of the home. Using Matthew Ayala’s cellphone, detectives determined he drove out to the Nye County desert twice, once with a rented U-Haul truck, DiGiacomo said.

Yolanda Ayala was found with a “close-range” gunshot wound to her head, DiGiacomo said. A shotgun found in the apartment also had Matthew Ayala’s DNA on it.

As part of the plea deal, he must be separated from the general population in prison until a doctor finds that he does not require “acute mental health care,” court records show. If he is placed back in general population, he would continue to be given treatment for his mental illness.

“He has ongoing history of mental health problems that are somewhat undiagnosed,” DiGiacomo said Friday. “But at least one doctor agrees he’s bipolar.”

Matthew Ayala’s public defender, Kathleen Hamers, declined to comment on the case on Friday.

Contact Katelyn Newberg at knewberg@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0240. Follow @k_newberg on Twitter.