SAN LUIS OBISPO COUNTY — District Attorney Dan Dow announced June 13 that a San Luis Obispo County jury has found Daniel Jacobo, 23, guilty of involuntary manslaughter and filing a false police report in the Nov. 4, 2022, shooting death of 28-year-old Alexander Xavier MonteroPille. The jury did not find true that Jacobo intentionally and personally used a firearm during the killing.

During the trial, the jury heard evidence that on Nov. 4, 2022, San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s deputies responded to Arroyo Grande Hospital regarding an individual who had been fatally shot.

The victim, Alexander Xavier MonteroPille, had been driven to the hospital by Jacobo, 23, and two others. All three provided a story that they were accosted in a “road rage” incident near Los Berros Road in Nipomo, where the victim was shot by an occupant of the opposing vehicle. The group recited this story several times to law enforcement over the course of the investigation.      

After a six-month-long investigation, it was determined that no such “road rage” incident occurred.  Instead, the evidence established that the group of four had been driving in the rural mountainous area of Lopez Canyon in Arroyo Grande, where they were shooting a gun and consuming alcohol and marijuana.  

Jacobo, who was seated in the rear passenger seat of the vehicle, shot several rounds into the mountain from within the vehicle.  As Jacobo brought the handgun back into the cab of the truck, he fired one round, which struck the rear of the driver’s seat.  

The bullet passed through the seat and into the back of the driver, Alex MonteroPille, resulting in his death.  Jacobo threw the gun from the truck, and the group of three made up the “road rage” cover story to hide the true cause of the killing.  

In a later interview, when pressed by detectives on the true circumstances of the killing, Jacobo admitted he was “high” on marijuana at the time he shot the victim.

Jacobo faces a maximum sentence of four years, six months in county jail, local custody, when he is sentenced on July 15 in Department 5 of the San Luis Obispo Superior Court, the Honorable Timothy Covello presiding. 

The case was investigated by the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office and prosecuted by Deputy District Attorney Cameron Simoes.