17-year-old murder case wraps up in 5 minutes with guilty plea
Guilty plea to manslaughter ends 17-year-old cold case killing.
By JON CASSIDY
The Orange County Register
Comments 6| Recommended1

WESTMINSTER – A 17-year-old murder case was wrapped up in five minutes Friday morning, when Santiago Obispo Reynosa, 36, pleaded guilty to manslaughter and received a two-year sentence in state prison.

Reynosa killed Luis Clavijo on Aug. 19, 1992 in Garden Grove after a drunken argument in a carport, and disappeared shortly afterward.

The plea was part of a deal in which a first-degree murder charge was dropped in exchange for the guilty plea.

Reynosa was extradited to Orange County from Illinois Jan. 16, after immigration authorities ran a fingerprint search on an arrestee who had given his name as Jaime Olivares. The prints came back matched to Reynosa.

On Aug. 19, 1992, Garden Grove police went to the West Chimes Apartments at 9653 Westminster Ave., and found Clavijo lying in a carport with three gunshot wounds to the chest.

Clavijo died nearly a month later; he had been too severely injured to talk to police.

Police began searching unsuccessfully for Reynosa, who was Clavijo's neighbor.

Reynosa and Clavijo came from the same town in Mexico, according to a search warrant, and had been drinking together earlier in the day Clavijo was shot.

Clavijo got involved in an argument between Reynosa and a mutual friend of theirs, which led to the shooting.

Reynosa "went out to tell them to quiet down, but he brought a gun with him," said Sgt. Ted Peaslee of the Garden Grove police.

It's unclear exactly where Reynosa fled to, but he told police he moved to Mexico before the date of the shooting, and lived there until 1997. Then he moved to Dallas, moving again to Chicago in 2000, where he married and settled down.

The prosecution agreed to the plea deal because of the difficulties involved in prosecuting a 17-year-old case, Deputy District Attorney Larry Yellin said.

The witnesses were mostly illegal immigrants, some of whom gave false names to investigators in 1992, and couldn't be tracked down now, Yellin said.

Det. John Maciel of the Garden Grove police did track down the mother of Reynosa's daughter: Maria Jacinto Quintero, his live-in girlfriend at the time of the killing.

He found her in Georgia by tracking an address to which the daughter's birth certificate had been mailed. She turned out to be little help, Yellin said.

Prosecutors did have 12 pictures of Reynosa holding the gun that was used.

Yellin said he thought Reynosa agreed to plead guilty because of a desire to take some responsibility for his actions, and to have resolution to something that had been hanging over his head for a long time.

Reynosa has been in custody 183 days, giving him 274 days of credit for time served.

If he behaves in prison, he'll be eligible for parole in around 10 months.

No friends or family of either Reynosa or Clavijo attended the hearing at West Justice Center.

Contact the writer: jcassidy@ocregister.com or 714-704-3782
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/reyn ... grove-down