‘Wedding crashers’ beat groom to death at reception
Suspects were not guests and had been asked to leave, police say
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Your support makes all the difference.A groom has been killed after being attacked outside his reception by wedding crashers who had been turned away, police said.
Joe Melgoza died after suffering a blunt force trauma to his head, according to California police.
Two men have been charged with his murder, police said.
Family members told local media the suspects accused of killing Mr Melgoza, who had got married just hours before, had tried to crash the wedding party.
They were not invited as guests and had been asked to leave, Sergeant Dustin Tomicic told ABC News.
Mr Melgoza’s brother told NBC4 News the suspects then “came back with bats”.
“My brother was protecting his family,” he said through tears. “They took him from us”.
There was no known relationship between Mr Melgoza and the men arrested on suspicion of his murder, police said.
Officers were called to reports of a fight in the early hours of Sunday in Chino, a city in California outside Los Angeles.
When they arrived, they met a large crowd from a nearby wedding party and found a man with a blunt force trauma to his head, the City of Chino Police Department said.
They said the victim died from his injuries in hospital.
Rony Aristides Castaneda Ramirez and his brother, Josue Daniel Castaneda Ramirez, were arrested on suspicion of murder on Sunday afternoon.
They have pleaded not guilty, according to San Bernadino County District Attorney’s Office.
They are also accused of assaulting two other men with a “deadly weapon”, believed to be a baseball bat, according to court documents.
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