Thread: Mexican who killed 25 U.S. farmworkers up for parole DENIED

Calif. man who killed 25 farmworkers up for parole

Updated 5h 45m ago

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) – A California man who once was the nation's worst known serial killer is up for parole, four decades after the mutilated bodies of 25 farmworkers were unearthed in orchards north of Sacramento.

Juan Corona, 77, has been diagnosed with dementia and mental illness. He is making his seventh bid for parole from Corcoran State Prison in the southern Central Valley.

None of his victims' relatives were expected to attend Monday's hearing, which Sutter County District Attorney Carl Adams said is a sad testament to Corona's crime, which targeted people who had few relatives.

"We have had no contact with survivors for two decades now. The people who he killed were farm laborers who were itinerant. Most of them didn't have relatives who could be contacted back in the '70s at the time of trial," Adams said.

Four of the bodies have never been identified. The bodies of 14 of Corona's victims were never claimed by family members after they were discovered in 1971.

"Not even a single person has family here," Corona told a prison psychologist before his parole was last denied in 2003. "They were all ready to go to the next world."

Corona, a farm labor contractor with a history of mental illness, was convicted of stabbing the men, hacking open their heads and burying their remains near Yuba City, 40 miles north of Sacramento.

His attorney, Leon Harris III of Bakersfield, declined to comment before the hearing.

His first conviction in 1973 was overturned on appeal, but he was convicted again in 1982 and sentenced to 25 concurrent life sentences. He was not eligible for the death penalty because California's capital punishment law had been ruled unconstitutional at the time.

It was the worst known killing spree in U.S. history, until John Wayne Gacy Jr. was convicted in 1980 of murdering 33 young men and boys in his Chicago home. Gacy was executed in 1994 in Illinois.

Investigators found a machete, a meat cleaver, a double-bladed ax and a wooden club, all stained with blood, in Corona's home, along with a ledger book containing the names of seven of the victims.

Most of his victims were white, though several were black or Native American. There was no known racial motivation for his crimes, Adams said.

Corona, a Mexican national and native of Jalisco, Mexico, has maintained his innocence, though at earlier parole hearings he acted confused and told the parole board he didn't recall much. His attorneys have argued that his mental and physical condition make him less dangerous.

Adams said his deterioration makes him a greater threat to himself and others.

"He is unreliably dangerous. He's also old and not in a condition where he can do well on the streets without prison supervision," Adams said. "Releasing him into the public wouldn't be doing him any good or the public any good."

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/sto ... 51649758/1

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Calif. man who killed 25 farmworkers denied parole

By DON THOMPSON, Associated Press
3:37 p.m., Dec. 5, 2011

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A California man who was once known as the nation's worst serial killer was again denied parole Monday after he admitted his guilt for the first time before the parole board.

Juan Corona said he murdered and mutilated 25 farmworkers four decades ago because they were trespassing in the orchards north of Sacramento, said Sutter County Assistant District Attorney Jana McClung.

Parole officials decided Corona can try again in five years, McClung said after the two-hour hearing. It was Corona's seventh bid for parole from Corcoran State Prison.

Corona previously made incriminating statements to a prison psychologist.

However, "this is the first time that I'm aware of that he made that admission to the full board. He said it was trespassing and they were winos," McClung said. "He just doesn't seem to realize that what he did was wrong."

Corona, 77, has been diagnosed with dementia and mental illness.

No family members of his victims attended the hearing. Prosecutors said Corona targeted victims who had few relatives and likely wouldn't be missed.

"We have had no contact with survivors for two decades now," District Attorney Carl Adams said before the hearing. "The people who he killed were farm laborers who were itinerant. Most of them didn't have relatives who could be contacted back in the `70s at the time of trial."

Four of the bodies have never been identified. The bodies of 14 of Corona's victims were never claimed by family members after they were discovered in 1971.

Corona, a farm labor contractor with a history of mental illness, was convicted of stabbing the men, hacking open their heads and burying their remains near Yuba City, 40 miles north of Sacramento.

He told the parole board he stabbed his first victim with a kitchen knife, shot his second, and killed the rest with a machete, McClung said. However, there is no record of any of his victims being shot, she said, raising questions about whether there was another possible victim or if the shooting was a product of Corona's fading mind.

Corona walked unaided into the hearing, but his dementia was evident during his comments, McClung said.

"He was a little bit all over the road," she said. "He did start rambling a little bit."

Corona's attorney, Leon Harris III of Bakersfield, declined to comment before the hearing.

Corona's first conviction in 1973 was overturned on appeal, but he was convicted again in 1982 and sentenced to 25 concurrent life sentences. He was not eligible for the death penalty because California's capital punishment law had been ruled unconstitutional at the time.

It was the most deadly killing spree in U.S. history, until John Wayne Gacy Jr. was convicted in 1980 of murdering 33 young men and boys in his Chicago home. Gacy was executed in 1994 in Illinois.

Investigators found a machete, a meat cleaver, a double-bladed ax and a wooden club, all stained with blood, in Corona's home, along with a ledger book containing the names of seven of the victims.

Corona is a Mexican national and native of Jalisco, Mexico.

His attorney argued that his age and lack of recent violent acts means he should be paroled, said McClung, who countered that his dementia and apparent lack of understanding and remorse means he is still dangerous.

"The concern could be, would he go out and do this again, because he doesn't seem to have an understanding of what he did the first time," she said.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2011 ... parole/?ap

Most of his victims were white, though several were black or Native American. There was no known racial motivation for his crimes, Adams said.

Whatever! This guy is crazier then a shit house rat! I'm surprised Obama didn't appoint him "Head of Foreign Relations"

Published 18 mins ago

California serial killer Juan Corona dead at 85: report

By Matt Richardson | Fox News


In this March 23, 2018, photo released by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is Juan Vallejo Corona. California State Prison-Corcoran inmate Corona, 85, died of natural causes on Monday, March 4, 2019, at an outside hospital. Corona was serving 25 concurrent life sentences for 25 counts of first-degree murder. His victims were all farm workers. (California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation via AP)

Juan Corona, one of the most active serial killers in the United States before he was convicted in 1971, died Monday at age 85. He had been serving 25 concurrent life sentences at the time of his death.

Corona, incarcerated in Corcoran, California, was convicted of killing – and burying – the bodies of 25 California farm laborers. He had been moved to an undisclosed hospital, Vicky Waters of the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation reported, where he eventually died.

Many of the workers he killed, usually via stabbing, were actually hired by Corona. He later buried their bodies in shallow graves along the Feather River, north of Sacramento.

He killed one of his victims with a gunshot wound to the head.

Corona was arrested after a peach farmer who had contracted with him for hired pickers became suspicious on finding a hole that had been freshly dug and then quickly filled in.

The farmer called authorities, suspicious someone was burying garbage in his orchard. Instead they found the body of a man whose head had been hacked and his torso riddled with stab wounds.

Corona was arrested a week later and subsequent searches turned up the bodies of 24 more people, including several Corona had recruited for farm work.

In 1978 an appeals court overturned Corona's conviction, ruling he had received incompetent representation from his attorney.

He remained jailed while he was re-tried and was convicted again in 1982 on the same 25 counts. He would go on to have his parole denied eight times - most recently in 2016.
A stabbing he suffered in 2017 almost left him dead, but he survived minus sight in his left eye.

"It was a gruesome manner of killing. He hacked these people to death," Sutter County District Attorney Amanda Hopper told The Associated Press after attending Corona's last parole hearing.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/californi...d-at-85-report