March 4th 2019: The Death of Juan Corona

 Juan Corona was born in a rural village in Mexico on the 7th of February 1934. When he was ten years old his brother Natividad moved to California who felt that after the work there would be a need for workers to replace those killed in the war. A few short years later in 1950 Juan Corona decided to drop out of school and follow in his brother's footsteps, illegally moving to California. He started working on local farms in the Sacramento Valley and attended night classes to improve his English. Corona settled in Yuba City, close to his brother and they two brothers were living The American Dream. 

Late in 1955 a flood hit the CIty of Yuba and caused great damage to the surrounding areas. Corona who had been afraid of water as a child took this disaster particularly bad and started suffering mentally with the fear and anxiety of the event. A few weeks later in January 1956, Natividad had become seriously worried about his little brother's well being and was unable to cope with his terror and frequent panic attacks. He committed Juan to a DeWitt State Hospital in Auburn that specialised in mental illnesses. Juan Corona was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. The hospital treated Corona for his illness using electric shock therapy a total of 23 times over a 3 month period. He was declared cured but unfortunately he was deported back to Mexico. 

Later in 1956, Corona once again illegally crossed the border between Mexico and The United States. Corona married a woman, Gloria Moreno and despite Corona's obvious mental health issues still persisting the couple had four daughters. Corona had started to display violent tendencies, he felt the need to show how masculine he was at any given  opportunity and had many issues with men who were openly gay.

In 1962 Corona became a licensed contract worker and despite how he may have acted in his personal life, he was a valued and trusted worker. On may 25th 1970 Corona was at a cafe owned by his brother when a man was attacked in the bathroom with a machete. José Romero was almost scalped in the attack and suffered wounds to his face and head. Corona became a suspect in the attack although there was not enough evidence to make a case. Romero sued Natividad for $250,000 and when Navitidad could not pay, he sold the cafe and moved back to Mexico. This left Corona alone in California with his wife and four daughters. 

14 months passed since Romero's attack in the cafe and on the 19th of May 1971, a farmer, Goro Kagehiro was out tending to his land when he found a large freshly dug hole. None of his employes had dug the hole nor did they know what the purpose of the hole was, it was out of place. Later that night Kagehiro returned to find that the hole had been filled in. Suspicious, he decided to contact the local sheriff about the incident. The sheriff dug the hole back up and found the body of drifter, Kenneth Whiteacre, who was believed to have been gay and it was classified as a sex crime. While the body was clothed and the pathologist did not even look for any signs of sexual assault, I think in today's world this would not have been classified as a sex crime and would have been listed as a homophobic killing, sooner than a sex crime. 

Less than a week later workers driving a tractor spotted another hole and while the week before they may have thought nothing of it, they knew what had become of Kenneth Whiteacre and were once again, suspicious. This time the sheriff found two bodies buried within close proximity of one another. Each of these second two men had tickets for a meat market that were signed by Corona three days earlier. All three of the bodies had been stabbed and hacked at with a long blade, something like a machete perhaps? A pickup truck of the same style and colour of Corona's had been seen in the area around the time of the murders. 

The sheriff ordered a search be carried out of the entire orchard, where 6 more bodies were found, all killed in the same manner, hacked and stabbed to death with the exception of one who was shot rather than attacked with a blade. The sheriff wanted to get a true number of victims before making an arrest but by this stage, Juan Corona was suspect number one. By this stage, police were finding that some of the men had their pants pulled down part way down the leg or some of them had no pants on at all. These were now beginning to look like sexually motivated attacks. The men were all casual farm workers, drifters and many of them in the country illegally, people that may go missing and it would not be noticed for a while. 

The men all had something else in common, they were all known to have been speaking to Corona in or around the last time they were seen alive. Police now had enough to make an arrest and bring Corona in for questioning. On the 26th of May Corona was arrested and taken in for questioning while carrying out a search of his home, office and car. There was various items of interest found including a machete, a pistol with ammunition, digging tools, a blood stained club, there was blood found in his car and a notebook with the names of 34 men and dates. 

At this point police were required to use infrared detectors from helicopters to identify the graves of the missing victims. By the 4th of June, the search had come to a completion and a total of 25 bodies had been found on various farms that Corona was associated with. 

Corona was found guilty on all charge on January 18th 1973. The trial in this case was put under delay for a number of reasons. Corona suffered two heart attacks and his attorney changed. He was first appointed a public attorney but was replaced by Richard Hawk. Richard Hawk was a private attorney who decided to wave the fees on the case in exchange for exclusive literacy and dramatic rights to Corona's story and life. Hawk failed to mention any of Corona's previous mental health issues including his diagnosis and or previous hospitalisation. He failed to call any witnesses to testify on behalf of Corona, while he may have had a violent temper and serious mental health problems, he was known to have worked hard and been very committed to his job. 

There is no denying that Juan Corona deserved a hefty prison sentence but his lawyer really seems to have made very little effort in terms of winning the case, or even in terms of trying to make a case for Juan Corona. 

Another major incident that delayed the proceedings in the case was the abolition of the death penalty in California which came into effect on 18th February 1972. If found guilty on 25 counts of murder before the end of the death penalty, it's almost a certain the Juan Corona would have died much sooner. Instead Juan Corona died on this day 2019 at age 85 in California State Prison.