Former ‘Beyond Scared Straight’ Star Ashley Tropez Found Dead in Abandoned Home; More Details Of Her Life After Appearing On the A&E Show

Ashley during her appearance on ‘Beyond Scared Straight’ in 2011…

Ashley Tropez of A&E’s Beyond Scared Straight series was found dead over the weekend in an abandoned home located in Victorville, California. 

According to People, the San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department issued a press release on Saturday stating that officers had been contacted about a dead body located in an abandoned house at 11:10 a.m. on Friday. Upon arriving to the scene, deputies found Ashley inside “suffering from traumatic injuries.”

(Although the police report lists Ashley’s age as 24, it should be noted that other news sources, as well as court records, state that she was actually 28, so it appears that the age given in the police report is incorrect.)

Ashley appeared on ‘Beyond Scared Straight’ in 2011 when she was 17 years old. The show— which aired on A&E from 2011 to 2015— was designed to help troubled teens and prevent them from ending up locked up. The show brought Ashley and other teens to jail and showed them what life behind bars was like. 

On the episode Ashley was featured on, she stated that she was brought to the program due to the fact that she had been fighting and selling marijuana. Her appearance was memorable because she got into a fight with a San Bernardino County deputy over a prison meal she had refused to eat.

The deputy dumped the meal on the floor and ordered Ashley to clean up the mess. Ashley refused to do that, too, causing the deputy to warn Ashley that her behavior and attitude would eventually land her in jail or— worse— dead.

A deputy warned Ashley that she would end up in prison or dead if she didn’t change…

“You can talk s**t to me, you can talk back, you can put up a front. There’s only two places on earth you’re gonna end up if you don’t change, here and the other one is death,” he told her.

The deputies then took Ashley and the other girls down to the morgue, something Ashley said later had “the biggest impact on me.” 

‘Beyond Scared Straight’ provided an update on Ashley in 2013. Ashley, then 18, reported that not much had changed because of her jail visit.

“Before the jail visit I was fighting, getting in trouble, selling weed,” she said. “When I seen myself on the show, I just was laughing…I think I attracted so much attention from the inmates and the deputies because the tag [they made me wear] said, ‘Gangbanger.’ 

“The jail visit didn’t change my life,” she said. “I’m still the same person.”

Ashley in 2013 during an update segment…

During the update segment, Ashley’s aunt reported that Ashley had actually “gotten worse” since the jail visit and was now back in the streets. Ashley claimed that she no longer sold weed, but had since “upgraded” what she sells. 

Her uncle Thomas later explained that Ashley was continuing to follow him in the “gang member lifestyle.” 

“I don’t see jail in my future at all,” Ashley told producers. “Because I don’t plan on gettin’ caught…I’m not going to give up my gang life. The ‘hood is always gonna be there. It’s embedded in me.” 

Shortly after the update segment was filmed, Ashley was arrested and charged with gun possession and robbery. She was sentenced to 40 days in jail and three years probation.

That was just the first of Ashley’s many arrests and run-ins with the law. According to court records pulled by The Ashley, she had been in and out of jail since 2013 for crimes ranging from stealing a vehicle, to burglary, to drug possession . Her final arrest happened in January 2022, when she was charged with making criminal threats and vandalism, as well as violating her probation. 

Ashley and other teens at the San Bernardino County Jail.

On Friday, a 24-year-old woman was booked into the High Desert Detention Center and named a suspect in Ashley’s murder. The San Bernardino Sherriff’s Department stated that the woman– Alexis Call— was someone Ashley knew and may have been squatting in the abandoned house with Ashley at the time of the murder. KTLA reports that Alexis appeared in court on Tuesday.

The Ashley can confirm that the home Ashley was found in was set on fire just one day after her body was discovered. 

RELATED STORY: A&E Announces Return of “60 Days In” & Premiere of New Series ‘Inmate to Roommate,’ Which Follows Ex-Cons’ First Days After Prison Release 

(Photos: A&E) 

14 Comments

  1. BITCH !! all yaal trifling grown old ass people on this shit talkin abt Ashley with yaal wrinkled asses!! get tf on!! let her rest !! even if she did do shit she wasn’t supposed ta do thats not affecting yaals life .. get the fuck? or all of yaal was drop tha @ catch my mothafuckin hands one by one


    1. She wasn’t a bum junkie, asshole. She was worse than that, she was a bum ass gangbanger. If she was in a gang, don’t they 👀 out for their own? I find it hard to believe that a legit gang member was squatting in an abandoned house where she was was killed by a probable junkie.


      1. Oh because you’re so special you get to decide whose life matters and whose doesn’t? Quit being a sleazy troll and get a life


  2. Very sad.

    What a shame to give up on life so early. The streets are the worst place to try to find the love you didn’t get at home.


  3. There is absolutely no way she was 17 in 2011 if she JUST died at 24. That math ain’t mathin. This blog used to be so careful about details like that. This is just sloppy.


    1. @Saoirse– According to local Victorville area news, the police report got Ashley’s age wrong. She was listed as being 24 but her friends who spoke to the news outlet claimed she was 28. San Bernardino court records confirm she was 28 so the mistake was on the police report. -The Ashley


      1. I’d be interested to know how the police got that wrong. If they can’t get something simple like that correct, I wouldn’t expect much for any investigation.


      1. My comment was posted before any update on her age. The clarification should’ve been made before the article was published to avoid the discrepancy. But go ahead and keep being ugly to people you don’t know about things you aren’t aware of. Great move.


  4. That’s really sad she died so young. You could tell on her episode she was either going to die young or end up in jail/prison.

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