A Brooklyn Center man pleaded guilty Monday to killing another man and later burning his body in Minneapolis.

Guillermo Ayala-Enriquez, 23, agreed to plead guilty to second-degree intentional murder in the shooting death of Rufino Clara-Rendon. He also confessed to trying to conceal the victim's identity by burning the body.

Ayala-Enriquez will be sentenced June 23. Prosecutors will seek a sentence of 40 years in prison.

His co-defendant, Manuel Guzman, was convicted of first-degree murder in April and sentenced immediately to life without parole.

According to the criminal complaint, firefighters were called to a dumpster fire Aug. 7 in the E. 39th Street alley between Snelling and Minnehaha Avenues. When they arrived, they found Clara-Rendon's burned body by the dumpster.

During Guzman's trial, witnesses testified to seeing what happened before the shooting and hearing a gunshot in a bathroom in Guzman's south Minneapolis home. The witnesses testified that Ayala-Enriquez and Guzman had accused Clara-Rendon of being a snitch. The two men had recently committed a drug robbery.

The witnesses also saw Guzman threatening the victim with the gun before the murder and saw Ayala-Enriquez with the gun in his hand afterward. Witnesses testified that Ayala-Enriquez and Guzman put Clara-Rendon's body in Ayala-Enriquez's SUV, drove to a nearby apartment building and set the body on fire.

DAVID CHANEN