Juan Vallejo Corona
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Juan Vallejo Corona | |
|---|---|
 Juan Corona at Corcoran State Prison |
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| Background information | |
| Alias(es): | The Machete Murderer |
| Born: | 1934 (age 73–74) Mexico |
| Penalty: | 25 life sentences without parole |
| Killings | |
| Number of victims: | 25 |
| Span of killings: | six week period through 1971 |
| Country: | U.S. |
| State(s): | California |
| Date apprehended: | 1971 |
Juan Vallejo Corona (born 1934) is an American serial killer who was convicted of murdering 25 men in 1971. The book The Road to Yuba City provides details of Corona's crimes.
[edit] Early life
Corona was born in Mexico, and moved to Yuba City, California in the 1950s, to work on a farm. He soon married and raised four daughters. Corona had reportedly suffered from schizophrenic episodes[1], but he was otherwise regarded as a hard worker. Corona eventually became a labor contractor in Yuba City, and he was in charge of hiring migrant workers to staff local farms. Most of the workers hired by Corona were from Mexico.
[edit] Bodies discovered
Around Yuba City on May 19, 1971, a farmer named Goro Kagehiro was touring his peach orchard when he saw a freshly dug grave on his land. Returning that night, he found that the hole had been filled in. Alarmed, he called the police. The next day, the corpse of an adult male was found in the shallow grave[2], prompting the property owner to call the Sutter County Sheriff's Department. Homicide detectives ordered that the area surrounding the grave be excavated, which unearthed a total of 24 additional male corpses, all of whom had been farm laborers. The coroner established that each of the victims had been hacked to death with a machete-like weapon[3].
Corona came under suspicion for the murders because he was supplying workers to the farm where the victims were found. Several bodies had documents on them showing that Corona's firm had retained their services, providing a concrete link between Corona and the victims[4]. Corona was arrested by authorities and indicted for the murders. The victims had all been killed in a period of six weeks, Corona had been killing an average of one victim every 40 hours.
Corona denied culpability for the crimes, but was found guilty and sentenced to 25 life sentences[5]. Corona eventually won a retrial following his exhaustive appeal processes. In his second trial, the defense posited that Corona's brother, who was deceased by then, was the real killer. Corona was convicted again and returned to prison after the strategy failed to persuade the court that he was innocent[6]. Juan Corona is currently incarcerated at Corcoran State Prison.
[edit] References
- ^ Juan Corona (HTML). latinamericanstudies.org. Retrieved on 2007-07-30. “he claimed that his original legal team had been incompetent. They had not put forward Schizophrenia as a mitigating factor or pleaded insanity.”
- ^ Ramsland, Katherine. "Juan Corona", Crime Library. Retrieved on 2007-08-21. "Curious about the hole, Kagehiro returned to the orchard that night and saw that it had been filled in. That made him doubly concerned, so he called the police ... Several deputies proceeded to dig, and to their surprise, instead of what they had suspected, it yielded the body of a slender white man."
- ^ TIME (Monday, Nov. 13, 1972). Mass-Murder Mess (HTML). TIME. Retrieved on 2007-07-30.
- ^ Ramsland, Katherine. Juan Corona (HTML). Crime Library. Retrieved on 2007-07-30. “And there was more evidence. In one grave, diggers had unearthed bank deposit slips printed with Juan Corona's name. That gave an added boost to the case. But even though this evidence seemed fairly damning, the case was anything but a slam-dunk.”
- ^ Doug Nelson (05.02.02). Valley of death (HTML). Newsreview. Retrieved on 2007-07-30. “Labor contractor Juan Corona was convicted of killing 25 farm workers.”
- ^ Katherine Ramsland. Juan Corona (HTML). Crime Library. Retrieved on 2007-07-30. “fifty-four hours over two weeks--to return a verdict of guilty. "Afterward," writes Frasier, "the foreman told the press that the most incriminating piece of evidence against Corona had been the so-called 'death ledger' for which the labor contractor had 'no reasonable explanation.'".”
