Jury Convicts Man of 1984 Murder of Farm Worker Who Disappeared

Without prosecutors ever recovering the victim’s body or the murder weapon, a Ventura County jury Wednesday convicted a 39-year-old San Joaquin Valley man of a murder that occurred more than 13 years ago.

The evidence that Ruben Rodriguez shot and killed Mario Torres and buried his body in a shallow grave on a remote ranch near Fillmore came from men who said they saw Rodriguez pull the trigger and from statements Rodriguez made to others, jurors said after the first-degree murder verdict was handed down.

“The eyewitness coming in at the last minute was a very powerful part of our verdict,” said Jackie Saragoza, the jury forewoman. “All of us understood the nature of the crime and consequences of our verdict. The evidence and the testimony were convincing beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Rodriguez could be sentenced to a maximum prison term of 25 years to life.

Torres, who was 26 when he disappeared March 28, 1984, was a migrant Mexican farm worker who sometimes made Santa Paula his home.

Because he would often come and go, his sister Angelina Barajas of Santa Paula did not report him missing when he disappeared. The witnesses did not come forward earlier because they were afraid, authorities said.

Authorities learned about the killing last summer from Ramiro Luna, Torres’ former landlord, after Luna was arrested for allegedly holding a gun to his wife’s head during a domestic disturbance. In exchange for leniency in his case, he told prosecutors about Torres’ death, saying Rodriguez shot Torreswhile he and four other men were drinking and listening to music around a campfire.

Luna did not come forward earlier because he was afraid of Rodriguez, authorities said.

“In the beginning . . . we were in a quandary about what to do,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Maeve Fox. “We were not sure if we would file this case at all . . . But as we pursued the investigation, everything just fell into place.”

Defense attorney Victor Salas Jr. said the case against his client was based on lies, and that the real killer was a man who went by the name Walter Medrano. He said Medrano fled to Mexico after the killing and has not been found.

Salas said he planned to appeal the decision on the grounds that the videotape in which Rodriguez is seen discussing the killing with an informant was inadmissible.

“For us the verdict was disheartening because I wasn’t clear it was that cut and dried,” Salas said. “But the jury spoke.”

Fox countered that her case against Rodriguez was strong.

The evidence against him went from next to nothing to having “overwhelming evidence of his guilt.”

Prosecutors presented four days of testimony from four men who said they witnessed the shooting.

The prosecution also presented a videotape of Rodriguez talking to Luna about the killing. Although Rodriguez never says that he killed Torres in the tape, he did say Torres was killed because nobody liked him.

“I can’t really say what motivated [Rodriguez] to kill Mario,” Fox said. “People kill people for little or no reason at all.”

For Torres’ family, the case has brought up emotion and a sense of loss that they had not experienced when Torres disappeared 13 years ago, Fox said.

“They didn’t know what had happened to him,” she said. “They heard from people that he was seen in Cancun . . . so now they finally know. They are just now getting the chance to grieve over the loss.”

Barajas, Torres’ sister, and his brother Jose Torres of North Carolina were not at the hearing because Superior Court Judge Allen Steele refused to delay the reading of the verdict to give the two time to drive in from Santa Paula.

The pair arrived a few minutes after the decision and were whisked away by counselors from Victims Services. They left the courthouse in tears and refused to talk to reporters.