August 16, 2023 • 38 mins
Juan Cornoa was a Mexican-American serial killer whose heinous acts shocked the nation in the eary 1970s. He was convicted in 1973 of the murders of 25 men, mostely transient farm workers. He remains one of the most infamous instances of serial killing in American history.
Sources for this episode:
Wikipedia - Yuba City, California
Wikipedia - Autlán
Wikipedia - Sacramento Valley
Wikipedia - Juan Corona
NY Times - Corona, 85, Convicted as Killer of 25 Farm Workers, Dies
Criminal Minds Fandom - Juan Corona
Support the show
Sources for this episode:
Wikipedia - Yuba City, California
Wikipedia - Autlán
Wikipedia - Sacramento Valley
Wikipedia - Juan Corona
NY Times - Corona, 85, Convicted as Killer of 25 Farm Workers, Dies
Criminal Minds Fandom - Juan Corona
Support the show
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to Crime on My Coffee.This podcast contains graphic descriptions and adult content
mature audiences only. Please Hi,y'all, and welcome to Crime with My
(00:31):
Coffee. I'm your fabulous hostess withthe Mostess June, and I'm Suzanne.
We're gonna tell you some stories you'veheard, some of you haven't, and
some you'll wish you hadn't. Allwith a Texas twang. Welcome back,
guys, Welcome back. Yes,happy you're here. Yeah, yeah,
(00:51):
yeah, if you're new year,hang around. We think we're kind of
awesome. Yeah yeah, and sodo like five people in the Internet world.
Five. Oh god, I'm flabbergasted. Five. That's awesome anyway.
Yeah, So what's in your mouthtoday? Well, in my mug,
(01:11):
I did not go to my boxopods. I actually just got a regular breakfast
Blend coffee pod. It's just habitthat I grab that. So that's what
I have, the regular breakfast blendthat I normally drink with the French vanilla
creamer because I don't know, itwas just repetition today for whatever reason,
(01:36):
I think the heat has gotten tomy brain because it's still a hundred and
melt. Your face off. Thatain't no choke. That's why I'm drinking
water. Oh yeah, so that'swhat you have in your mug today.
So I'm super boring. I justhave a bottle of water. You know,
I'll stay hydrated. Drink your water. People, it's summertime and it's
(01:57):
hot and you need to stay hydrated. Drink your water. Yes, you
have a hat. If you don'thave water in your hand right now,
go get some water and then comeback and listen to us. Okay,
sounds good. That's that's my PSAfor the day. Okay, even if
it's not one hundred and melt yourface off where you live, it's still
summertime and you should stay hydrated anyway, absolutely, unless you're in the Southern
(02:17):
Hemisphere and then it's one your time. Go drink something warm. M coffee,
yes, yes, drink a cupfor me. M so well,
I am going to be bringing usa case today. And I hope you
have your passport because nowadays you can'tgo anywhere without a passport. I do
(02:42):
have my passport ready, let's go. Okay, all right, well we're
going to start off in Okay.I don't know Spanish and I don't know
how to say Spanish words very well, so forgive me. Okay, we're
going to start off in Autlan,Lisco, Mexico. Okay, we're going
(03:06):
to Mexico. Yes, so itturns to tequila when when I when I
see these, I don't, Idon't. It just didn't click for whatever
reason. You know, Uh,Autlon is the city, uh Jalisco is
the state, but it's in Mexico, so there's always Mexico behind it.
(03:29):
And I was like, I mean, it didn't make any sense. And
then finally I'm like, oh,I get it, because like here,
we would say, oh, Idon't know Bimbrook, Texas, but it's
in the US, so you know, I would have gone with Austin,
Texas since that's where we're going ina couple of weeks. I know.
(03:49):
And I'm so excited, so excitedabout that, me too. Hope to
see you there at the True CrimePodcast Festival. Yeay, oh, I'm
so excited. Sorry, true Crimepodcast and Paranormal Festival. Yes, it's
all the same, but I willbe there. Hope to see you soon.
Yes, yes, all right,so this is where we're going.
(04:12):
We're going to Mexico. Now,this Atlan is actually in the southwest part
of the state. The name comesfrom some kind of language that I can't
say, but it means like waterway, like water channel, water ditch,
you know. Okay. It's inthe Coast of Sar region and it is
(04:38):
the most populous and largest city inthe Coast of Sar region. All right.
The population in two thousand and five, this is the only senses that
I could find. There was twosenses, one from two thousand and five.
Population in two thousand and five wasfifty three thousand, two hundred.
(05:00):
In sixty nine, oh wow.And then the approximate population in twenty ten
was one hundred and eight thousand,four hundred and twenty seven. In five
years, it doubled. Yes,can you believe that? Wow? That's
wow. Okay, it should takenote. I'm just saying I could only
(05:26):
find just a couple of people,notable people that actually from were from Outslan,
and you might notice the names.One is Carlos Santana never heard of
Noah never never No. He's aguitarist rock and roll, Latin American jazz.
(05:47):
And his brother George or it couldbe Jorge I guess you know.
Santana actually was both were from there. George actually was alls So a guitarist,
and he did another band. Itwasn't Santana like Carlos did, but
(06:10):
he did. He toured with anotherband for quite a while, and then
after about four years or so,we went solo for a little bit,
and then he actually did tour withhis brother and Santana for a while.
(06:30):
So we're in Mexico. On Februarythe seventh, nineteen thirty four, a
little boy named one Vallejo Corona wasborn. Didn't find out a whole lot
about his young age, but Iknow that I read he was one of
eight or ten children. Was agood number of children, but back then
(06:54):
in thirty four, you had alot of kids, right well, way
too many for me, I'm tellingyou. Around nineteen fifty, when he's
about sixteen years old, one ofhis older brothers had actually migrated into California,
so he decided that he was goingto come over the border into California
(07:15):
as well. And the place thathe ended up was actually like Imperial Valley.
It was a very highly agriculture place, you know, and he picked
carrots and melons for about three monthsto make some money and then finally he
moved into this Sacramento Valley. Thiswas looser to where his brother was.
(07:40):
You know, he had to kindof work up enough money to be able
to move from one place to theother. Where Sacramento Valley, California is
the area of Central Valley, California, and it's north of Sacramento. It's
north of the Sacramento San Wauqui KeenRiver Delta is what it is. There's
(08:03):
a lot of little cities in it, which include Sacramento and Yuba City,
which is actually where we're going togo. That's where Juan ended up moving.
He moved to Yuba City, whichis the county seats for Sutter County
December of nineteen fifty five, whileJuan is there because he come over.
(08:24):
In nineteen fifty they had a seriesof storms that caused a lot of rivers
to overflow their banks and break thelevies. They had a big flood.
Fortunately, only thirty eight people losttheir lives during this big flood. Unfortunately,
there was thirty eight people who losttheir lives. That seems like a
(08:46):
big number to me, but Iguess when you're talking about as a population
as a whole it's a very renewednumber, right, because part of it
a lot worse, oh way worse. The population in eighteen ninety of Uba
City was only five hundred and sixtytwo, but in nineteen seventy the population
(09:09):
was thirteen thousand, nine hundred andeighty six. In twenty twenty, the
population was seventy thousand, one hundredand seventeen. So if you look at
those numbers, thirty eight is notbad, right, you know, but
it's still bad because somebody lost theirlife. It's like all the people that
live on the street in front ofmy house. Yeah. Yeah. A
(09:31):
couple of notable people from Uba City, California is Tyler Rich who is a
country singer. Also from Uba Cityis Charlotte Charlotte Stewart, TV actress.
If you don't know, or youprobably are not old like me, I
knew her because she was on LittleHouse on the Prairie. I'm just saying.
(09:54):
So I watched it. I'm notgonna lie. I watched it.
Also wholesome, I now I knowit was. It was wholesome. It
was fun to watch, and youknow me, and you know it is
August and football has started up,so of course I have to mention at
(10:16):
least one person that had something todo with football. So the last person
that I am going to mention fromUba City, California is Ron Porter.
He was actually a linesman former linebackerfor the NFL. He played for the
Colts, the Eagles, and theVikings. And that's all I'm gonna say.
(10:39):
Go Colts. Yeah, okay,sure, go football. That's what
I say. Football Colts anyway.Okay. So, so after he moves
to Uba City, he had madean arrangement and he was very encouraged by
his brother who had already moved thereabout four years before. He moved in
(11:05):
with his brother and the plays it'scalled like Marysville, Uba City area.
He ended up going to work thereon the local ranch. Apparently there are
a lot of ranches in this area. They're mostly like citrus and nut orchards
(11:28):
and cattle ranches. But he wentto work on like one of the citrus
orchards. He's kind of moving around. He's centralized there in Uba City.
But for whatever reason, he tooka little trip to Reno, Nevada and
got married on October twenty fourth,nineteen fifty three. Because he had found
(11:50):
love and he was about it right, so he was about nineteen at this
time. Unfortunately, didn't last verylong because what I read, by December
of nineteen fifty three, they wereseparated and divorced. Oops, yes,
it's not very long at all.Not very long at all. I've had
(12:11):
indigestion last longer than that. That'sfine. Oh yeah, me too.
About three years after his marriage anddivorce, he's still working there on the
local terrain and he's living with hisbrother, and he started having like schizophrenic
(12:35):
type episodes. So his brother islike, dude, something is wrong with
you. So he had Corona committedto the DeWitt State Hospital there in Auburn,
which is about forty miles from Marysville. While he was there, he
was diagnosed with schizophrenia reaction, theparanoid type. Now, I said that
(13:01):
he started having these issues after thebig flood in December of nineteen fifty five
where these people lost their lives.I read that for whatever reason, he
thought that these people that had diedwas coming back. Oh, and so
he really started having some mental issues, and like I said, by January
(13:26):
the following year, nineteen fifty six, he was committed. He stayed there
for a while. They kept himfor about three months and then they released
him. But when they released him, they actually deported him back to Mexico.
In nineteen fifty nine, he findslove again. He's about, I
(13:46):
don't know, twenty five years oldat this time, but he finds love
again, ends up getting married,and him and his wife end up having
four children together. He kept wantingto come to the US. He wanted
to make a better life for himself. So in nineteen sixty two, when
he was about twenty eight, hereturned to the US and he was given
(14:11):
a green card. Trying to dogood, trying to make his life right,
he became a licensed labor contractor andwas put in charge of hiring for
the local fruit ranches there. Everybodysaid he was a very hard worker,
and he really was about it.That's why they kind of put him in
(14:31):
charge of doing all this hiring andeverything. He still had some episodes going
on. Now. I did reada little bit about schizophrenia, and it
says that in schizophrenia you end uphaving continuous or relapsing episodes of psychosis,
and one of the major symptoms islike hallucinations. You hear voices you have
(14:56):
delusions, you have a disorder organizedway of thinking. You can also have
social withdrawal from it, decrease emotionalexpression where you don't really feel empathy,
you know, it's a lack ofemotion. They do say that usually it
develops gradually as you get older,and it starts happening usually around young adulthood.
(15:24):
And he's what twenty five about thistime, right, And he was
twenty one when he first started havingthe episodes after the flood. So you
know, I don't know, maybeput two and two together, but they
usually say schizophrenia is usually not reallyresolved. You can get medication and you
(15:48):
know, right to kind of helpcontrol the symptoms and like delusional breaks and
stuff like that. Right, youhave it forever? Yes, yes,
So in nineteen seventy he was committedagain to the DeWitt State Hospital for treatment.
In nineteen seventy one, he decided, you know what, apparently you
(16:11):
know something is going on, sohe applied for welfare. It was denied.
Now he's thirty seven and he's beenworking over here pretty close to about
ten years. Hard working, likeI said, that's why he was in
charge of the hiring and the firingeverything like that. Around May nineteenth,
(16:33):
nineteen seventy one, one of thefarm owners that Corona worked for noticed that
there was a hole dug in hisorchard. He was like, what is
this? What is going on?So he comes back a little bit later
to check on it, and thehole is filled in. He was like,
I don't, I don't know.That was just really strange. That
(16:56):
just really really weird. He didn'tknow what it was, but he went
ahead and started kind of investigating whatthis hole was. Who did it?
What? Why was this hole inhis orchard? It turns out, I
want to say it was a peachorchard, if I'm not mistaking, I
(17:18):
like peaches. I don't know.While he's investigating this hole, he actually
discovered there was a body inside.Oh whoops. I don't think you can
plant those and grow people. Idon't think so, either. Don't think
how growing the population works. No, I don't. I don't think so
(17:41):
either. Of course, the policeget involved and they come out. They're
doing their investigation, and then theynoticed that there's more looks like freshly recovered
holes, and some that looks likethey've been there for a while, and
they're like, what this is reallyreally weird. So they started digging these
(18:07):
up, and inside they find morebodies of people. And inside some of
these holes there were was a littlebit what they felt very incriminating evidence.
It was all circumstantial, but theyfelt it was It definitely was a good
(18:29):
lead for them, which helped bootboost the case for them. They interviewed
some of the neighbors and some otherpeople. A lot of the neighbors said
that they remember seeing these people,but the last time they seen these people,
they were actually with Juan Corona lookingso good for you, mister Corona.
(18:51):
Well, a lot of these workerswere like middle aged males right with
criminal, questionable bowl type background records, but a lot of them actually stayed
in a bunk house on one ofthe ranches that one supplied workers four.
So to me, it's not reallyweird that one would be seen with these
(19:19):
people because he's the one that doesthe hiring and does the laborers for a
lot of these ranches and everything.But the police find find that they feel,
along with some incriminating evidence that they'vefound, they think that he would
(19:41):
be a good suspect. So inthe very early morning of May twenty six,
nineteen seventy one, The police endup going to Juan Corona's house with
a search warrant and arrested him.They gathered up evidence, took pictures,
(20:03):
you know, and they felt thatthe evidence indicated his guilt. So while
Corona is under arrest, he wasgiven legal aid and a public defender who
hired several psychiatrists to do psychological evaluations. They moved him to a new jail
that they had a new county jailthat they had built in Marysville on May
(20:29):
thirtieth, nineteen seventy one, andthen on June second, nineteen seventy one,
he was taken back to Sutter Countyfor the arrangement. It was closed
to the media and all the public. Nobody could come in, nobody could
watch, Nobody could you know,see what's going on. While this is
all going on, the police arestill doing their investigation. They're still trying
(20:52):
to see what's going on, andyou know, what's happening, what they
can find, what they can't find. Corona pled not guilty. So a
puliminary hearing was set up. Andthis preliminary hearing is where the jury finds
evidence and says that a probable causeto believe that a crime's being committed by
(21:17):
the defendant. The investigation that thepolice were doing finally terminated on June fourth,
nineteen seventy one, and now they'regoing to go to trial. The
public defender that Corona ends up havingwas replaced by a private defense attorney,
and he said, you know what, it's a little gift. Take here.
(21:40):
I'm gonna do this trial for youin exchange for exclusive literary and dramatic
property rights to your life story,including the proceedings that are against you.
M that seems a little sketchy tome, A little sketch. Corona said,
(22:02):
you know what, I mean,I'll take it because I feel a
paid lawyer, even though you're doingit pro bono for free, versus one
who just does it all willy nillyall the time and doesn't get paid for
it and probably just really don't care. I'm gonna take that deal. It's
(22:22):
like, okay, Okay, that'sgreat. So after they Corona agreed to
this, this new attorney said,you know what, I want you to
plead not guilty by reason of insanity. Corona is like okay, and then
the lawyer turns around and fires allthe psychiatrists that were hired previously, and
(22:45):
this lawyer did all this without havingany reports or medical records or anything.
Yeah, definitely sending me some sketchvibes, bro, a little bit of
sketch vibes for sure. Definitely nota level of trust here, No.
No. On June eighteenth, nineteenseventy one, Corona started complaining of chess
(23:10):
pains. He was taken to thehospital and there they did diagnose him with
having a mild heart attack. Ithappened again about two months later in August,
but he was indicted by the grandjury in July. Trial begins September
eleventh, nineteen seventy two, inFairfield, California. Because the lawyer got
(23:36):
a change of venue with this,and since he pled not guilty by reason
of insanity, he wasn't called totestify, and in fact, nobody the
defense didn't call any witnesses at all. I mean, I can see both
sides of that coin, because it'snot the defense's job to say, hey,
(23:59):
my clients sent it's the prosecution's jobto say, hey, no,
this dude is guilty. Well,I mean I get it, I get
it. But at the same time, yeah, yeah, a little bit.
Should understand your client, you wouldthink, I understand, you know,
maybe you don't want to put himon the stand, but maybe you
want to put somebody on the standif he's pleading insanity. Yeah, I
(24:25):
mean, you have somebody on thestand to verify. Yeah, we think
this guy's insane. Yeah, someof the doctors that had treated him before
his brother, you know, maybebecause he had witnessed some episode something,
But he didn't call anybody, okay, But it was presented at trial some
(24:45):
of the evidence that they had gatheredin the orchard, in some of the
holes, it was discovered with thesepeople that were in these holes. One
of the holes actually had a receiptthat had Corona's signature on it, and
in another couple of graves there weredeposit slips that had Corona's name and address
(25:08):
on it. But like I said, he employed these men, So I
mean, would I expect them tohave maybe some stuff from him on their
person. Maybe not specifically, butbut yeah, that's yeah, yeah,
(25:33):
yeah yeah. Well. Also whenthe police had went to his house with
this search warrant, they found whatthey presented as two bloodstained knives, a
machette, a pistol and blood stainedclothes. They also found a book,
(25:56):
a ledger that had aimes of peopleon there. It was a work ledger.
It had like thirty four names anddates on it. The prosecution started
calling it like the death list becauseit turns out that on this list of
(26:17):
thirty four people, there were seventhat were found and could be identified there
in the holes that they found inthe orchard. I mean, that's a
good number out of thirty four,but I don't know that that would make
this a death list. Yeah,well, I mean that's that's what they
(26:37):
called it. Corona is thirty nineyears old. January eighteenth, nineteen seventy
three. The trial is done,jury goes to deliberate. It takes them
forty five hours to reach a verdict, and the verdict was he was guilty
(26:59):
of first degree murder on all twentyfive counts that the grand jury had indicted
him with. Now, total shockon your face. I see that.
But now, in California, theSupreme Court had avoided the death penalty in
(27:21):
February nineteen seventy two, just sixmonths before Corona goes on trial, so
he's not eligible for that exactly.But Corona was given twenty five terms of
life in prison. The judge said, okay, well, these twenty five
years, twenty five terms of lifein prison are going to run consecutively without
(27:48):
the possibility of parole. Despite beinggiven so much time, he would be
eligible for parole in seven years.How because the Penal Code Section six six
nine mandates when a crime is punishableby life in prison with or without parole
(28:11):
possibilities, that all other convictions shallbe merged and run concurrently. And that's
per the Department of Corrections. Buthow does that have anything to do with
making him eligible for parole after sevenyears? Because I guess if you take
(28:32):
twenty five years, that would bethe most he could get because all of
them kind of run together now,right, not stretched out, not twenty
five then twenty five then twenty five. It's basically one twenty five year sentence.
You have to serve half, rightin that what I think. But
(28:52):
I think somehow or another, itturns out that it doesn't have to be
quite half of your sentence that youcan actually be eligible for parole. I
know it's true, but if you'renot eligible for parole, but it states
in there, it doesn't matter it'swith or without the possibility of parole.
(29:15):
That just says that it merges them. That doesn't say that it grants them
the possibility of parole, even ifthey're told they don't have the possibility of
parole. I don't know. That'sweird. Yeah, that doesn't make sense,
so weird, but whatever. SoJuan Corona is sent to Vacaville's California
medical facility first because of his heartirregularities that he was having, and in
(29:42):
nineteen seventy three he ended up beingstabbed thirty two times in his cell.
Wow. Yeah, he lived throughit. He managed to live through it,
and in nineteen seventy four they transferredhim to the Correctional Training and Facility
in Solidad, California, which isabout one hundred and sixty miles from Fairfield.
(30:10):
About this time, his wife islike, you know what we done?
She divorced him. In May ofnineteen seventy eight. The lawyers had
filed for a new trial and itwas granted because they based it on the
lawyer didn't really do a legal andfactual His defense lawyer didn't do diddly squad
(30:34):
exactly. His lawyer didn't request legalor factual investigation findings or anything like that,
and his lawyer got the publication rights, which is definitely you know,
a conflict of interest there. Yeah, so they granted him a new trial,
and the second trial began February twentysecond, nineteen eighty two, in
(31:00):
Hayward, California. Now Corona isabout forty eight at this time, and
Hayward is about one hundred and elevenmiles from Solidad where he was transferred.
He got a new lawyer, andhis new lawyers tried to present the case
that someone else had done all this, and they had fled back to Mexico,
(31:22):
and the persons that they were claiminghad done this had unfortunately just passed
away about eight years before this newtrial took place. Yeah, so let's
blame the dead guy. He can'ttestify, tified on his own behalf,
or defend himself or you know whatever. It's fine. Exactly while he's on
(31:45):
trial, Corona's doing the second trial. They ended up calling the new lawyers
ended up calling over fifty defense witnessesto the stand first as the original zero
exactly. Corona was called to thestand as well, and his lawyer only
asked him two questions. First questionhim, he asked him, was do
(32:09):
you understand this state has accused youof killing twenty five men? Corona suggests.
The lawyer asked him a second question, do you did you have anything
to do with killing these men?And Corona said no. So the trial
(32:30):
goes on and it lasts for likeseven months. Wow, yes, a
long time. Finally ends up wrappingup in September of nineteen eighty two.
The jury had deliberated for fifty fourhours, but Juan Corona was convicted again
(32:54):
again of all twenty five homicides andsent back to prison. He was sent
back to the Korres Correctional Training Facilityin Solodad. So he's transferred to Corcoran
State Prison in Corcoran, California innineteen ninety two, which is about one
(33:15):
hundred and thirty one miles from Solidad, where he was at previously, where
he served his life sentences in thesensitive needs yard. Because by this time
he ended up getting dementia, hewas also denied parole eight times. Juan
(33:37):
Corona ended up passing away March fourth, two thousand and nineteen, at the
age of eighty five from natural causes. Now all the victims. All twenty
five of these victims, all butone were stabbed, slashed with a knife
or a machete. The way Iread all of these victims, like I
(33:59):
said, said, with or withoutthe criminal records, drifters, it doesn't
matter. One was seeing these asthe people that had died in the flood,
and it turns out he was very, very afraid of water. They
were all between the age of Iwant to say, forty three and sixty
(34:24):
seven, sixty eight, something likethat, all twenty five of these men,
and all of these men, likeI said, except for one,
had been cut, slashed something.And at the time of the crimes that
Corona did was among the most notoriousin you as history until the discovery of
(34:50):
Dean Coral's victims down. Like Isaid, it turns out that they considered
Juan Corona one of the deadliest Americanserial killers by number of proven victims.
Yeah, that's my case. Wow, well, thank you, no problem.
(35:16):
It was definitely something else, that'sfor sure. It was. It
was yes, thank you for sharing. Wow, no problem. Wow.
Yeah that's all I got. Yeah, I mean, I like your facial
expression when I was talking about ohyeah, seven of these people out of
(35:40):
twenty five victims that they yes,Wow, Yeah. I didn't want to
just like spill that all Willie Neely. I wanted you to, you know,
think, oh, you know,he did a little bit of here,
a little bit of there. Butyeah, And the funny thing was
all of this, I don't eventhough if I know twenty five people,
(36:04):
I don't. I don't I wantto say that all of this they can
thought that all of these people,these twenty five people were murdered from March
of nineteen seventy one until May ofnineteen seventy one. So just a couple
(36:27):
of months, twenty five. Yes, that's more than one a week.
That's crazy, absolutely crazy. Couldn'tbelieve it. I was like, are
you kidding me? Yeah? Thatthat to me was blue my mind.
Heck, abouts more than two aweek. M Yeah, oh my gosh,
(36:52):
I know, I know it,and I mean it's like he just
he just snapped, Oh, Itake the back. It wasn't March.
It was February February nineteen seventy oneto May of nineteen seventy one. Wow.
Still, that's still a lot exactlyexactly, but he knows a super
(37:13):
short period of time. Yes,he was having some serious issues that he
really didn't get help for the firsttime he was committed. When his brother
had him committed, he actually gotlike shock therapy. He got several rounds
of the shock therapy, but youknow, I guess it really didn't help
(37:37):
because he thought, yeah, yeah, crazy, Well yeah, I don't
think electro shock therapy works. Ithink it outlawed it because it doesn't work.
I know, I know, craziness. So all right, well that's
what I got for you, SoI guess until next time. Yep,
okay. By the contact they contactPO
Welcome to Crime on My Coffee.This podcast contains graphic descriptions and adult content
mature audiences only. Please Hi,y'all, and welcome to Crime with My
(00:31):
Coffee. I'm your fabulous hostess withthe Mostess June, and I'm Suzanne.
We're gonna tell you some stories you'veheard, some of you haven't, and
some you'll wish you hadn't. Allwith a Texas twang. Welcome back,
guys, Welcome back. Yes,happy you're here. Yeah, yeah,
(00:51):
yeah, if you're new year,hang around. We think we're kind of
awesome. Yeah yeah, and sodo like five people in the Internet world.
Five. Oh god, I'm flabbergasted. Five. That's awesome anyway.
Yeah, So what's in your mouthtoday? Well, in my mug,
(01:11):
I did not go to my boxopods. I actually just got a regular breakfast
Blend coffee pod. It's just habitthat I grab that. So that's what
I have, the regular breakfast blendthat I normally drink with the French vanilla
creamer because I don't know, itwas just repetition today for whatever reason,
(01:36):
I think the heat has gotten tomy brain because it's still a hundred and
melt. Your face off. Thatain't no choke. That's why I'm drinking
water. Oh yeah, so that'swhat you have in your mug today.
So I'm super boring. I justhave a bottle of water. You know,
I'll stay hydrated. Drink your water. People, it's summertime and it's
(01:57):
hot and you need to stay hydrated. Drink your water. Yes, you
have a hat. If you don'thave water in your hand right now,
go get some water and then comeback and listen to us. Okay,
sounds good. That's that's my PSAfor the day. Okay, even if
it's not one hundred and melt yourface off where you live, it's still
summertime and you should stay hydrated anyway, absolutely, unless you're in the Southern
(02:17):
Hemisphere and then it's one your time. Go drink something warm. M coffee,
yes, yes, drink a cupfor me. M so well,
I am going to be bringing usa case today. And I hope you
have your passport because nowadays you can'tgo anywhere without a passport. I do
(02:42):
have my passport ready, let's go. Okay, all right, well we're
going to start off in Okay.I don't know Spanish and I don't know
how to say Spanish words very well, so forgive me. Okay, we're
going to start off in Autlan,Lisco, Mexico. Okay, we're going
(03:06):
to Mexico. Yes, so itturns to tequila when when I when I
see these, I don't, Idon't. It just didn't click for whatever
reason. You know, Uh,Autlon is the city, uh Jalisco is
the state, but it's in Mexico, so there's always Mexico behind it.
(03:29):
And I was like, I mean, it didn't make any sense. And
then finally I'm like, oh,I get it, because like here,
we would say, oh, Idon't know Bimbrook, Texas, but it's
in the US, so you know, I would have gone with Austin,
Texas since that's where we're going ina couple of weeks. I know.
(03:49):
And I'm so excited, so excitedabout that, me too. Hope to
see you there at the True CrimePodcast Festival. Yeay, oh, I'm
so excited. Sorry, true Crimepodcast and Paranormal Festival. Yes, it's
all the same, but I willbe there. Hope to see you soon.
Yes, yes, all right,so this is where we're going.
(04:12):
We're going to Mexico. Now,this Atlan is actually in the southwest part
of the state. The name comesfrom some kind of language that I can't
say, but it means like waterway, like water channel, water ditch,
you know. Okay. It's inthe Coast of Sar region and it is
(04:38):
the most populous and largest city inthe Coast of Sar region. All right.
The population in two thousand and five, this is the only senses that
I could find. There was twosenses, one from two thousand and five.
Population in two thousand and five wasfifty three thousand, two hundred.
(05:00):
In sixty nine, oh wow.And then the approximate population in twenty ten
was one hundred and eight thousand,four hundred and twenty seven. In five
years, it doubled. Yes,can you believe that? Wow? That's
wow. Okay, it should takenote. I'm just saying I could only
(05:26):
find just a couple of people,notable people that actually from were from Outslan,
and you might notice the names.One is Carlos Santana never heard of
Noah never never No. He's aguitarist rock and roll, Latin American jazz.
(05:47):
And his brother George or it couldbe Jorge I guess you know.
Santana actually was both were from there. George actually was alls So a guitarist,
and he did another band. Itwasn't Santana like Carlos did, but
(06:10):
he did. He toured with anotherband for quite a while, and then
after about four years or so,we went solo for a little bit,
and then he actually did tour withhis brother and Santana for a while.
(06:30):
So we're in Mexico. On Februarythe seventh, nineteen thirty four, a
little boy named one Vallejo Corona wasborn. Didn't find out a whole lot
about his young age, but Iknow that I read he was one of
eight or ten children. Was agood number of children, but back then
(06:54):
in thirty four, you had alot of kids, right well, way
too many for me, I'm tellingyou. Around nineteen fifty, when he's
about sixteen years old, one ofhis older brothers had actually migrated into California,
so he decided that he was goingto come over the border into California
(07:15):
as well. And the place thathe ended up was actually like Imperial Valley.
It was a very highly agriculture place, you know, and he picked
carrots and melons for about three monthsto make some money and then finally he
moved into this Sacramento Valley. Thiswas looser to where his brother was.
(07:40):
You know, he had to kindof work up enough money to be able
to move from one place to theother. Where Sacramento Valley, California is
the area of Central Valley, California, and it's north of Sacramento. It's
north of the Sacramento San Wauqui KeenRiver Delta is what it is. There's
(08:03):
a lot of little cities in it, which include Sacramento and Yuba City,
which is actually where we're going togo. That's where Juan ended up moving.
He moved to Yuba City, whichis the county seats for Sutter County
December of nineteen fifty five, whileJuan is there because he come over.
(08:24):
In nineteen fifty they had a seriesof storms that caused a lot of rivers
to overflow their banks and break thelevies. They had a big flood.
Fortunately, only thirty eight people losttheir lives during this big flood. Unfortunately,
there was thirty eight people who losttheir lives. That seems like a
(08:46):
big number to me, but Iguess when you're talking about as a population
as a whole it's a very renewednumber, right, because part of it
a lot worse, oh way worse. The population in eighteen ninety of Uba
City was only five hundred and sixtytwo, but in nineteen seventy the population
(09:09):
was thirteen thousand, nine hundred andeighty six. In twenty twenty, the
population was seventy thousand, one hundredand seventeen. So if you look at
those numbers, thirty eight is notbad, right, you know, but
it's still bad because somebody lost theirlife. It's like all the people that
live on the street in front ofmy house. Yeah. Yeah. A
(09:31):
couple of notable people from Uba City, California is Tyler Rich who is a
country singer. Also from Uba Cityis Charlotte Charlotte Stewart, TV actress.
If you don't know, or youprobably are not old like me, I
knew her because she was on LittleHouse on the Prairie. I'm just saying.
(09:54):
So I watched it. I'm notgonna lie. I watched it.
Also wholesome, I now I knowit was. It was wholesome. It
was fun to watch, and youknow me, and you know it is
August and football has started up,so of course I have to mention at
(10:16):
least one person that had something todo with football. So the last person
that I am going to mention fromUba City, California is Ron Porter.
He was actually a linesman former linebackerfor the NFL. He played for the
Colts, the Eagles, and theVikings. And that's all I'm gonna say.
(10:39):
Go Colts. Yeah, okay,sure, go football. That's what
I say. Football Colts anyway.Okay. So, so after he moves
to Uba City, he had madean arrangement and he was very encouraged by
his brother who had already moved thereabout four years before. He moved in
(11:05):
with his brother and the plays it'scalled like Marysville, Uba City area.
He ended up going to work thereon the local ranch. Apparently there are
a lot of ranches in this area. They're mostly like citrus and nut orchards
(11:28):
and cattle ranches. But he wentto work on like one of the citrus
orchards. He's kind of moving around. He's centralized there in Uba City.
But for whatever reason, he tooka little trip to Reno, Nevada and
got married on October twenty fourth,nineteen fifty three. Because he had found
(11:50):
love and he was about it right, so he was about nineteen at this
time. Unfortunately, didn't last verylong because what I read, by December
of nineteen fifty three, they wereseparated and divorced. Oops, yes,
it's not very long at all.Not very long at all. I've had
(12:11):
indigestion last longer than that. That'sfine. Oh yeah, me too.
About three years after his marriage anddivorce, he's still working there on the
local terrain and he's living with hisbrother, and he started having like schizophrenic
(12:35):
type episodes. So his brother islike, dude, something is wrong with
you. So he had Corona committedto the DeWitt State Hospital there in Auburn,
which is about forty miles from Marysville. While he was there, he
was diagnosed with schizophrenia reaction, theparanoid type. Now, I said that
(13:01):
he started having these issues after thebig flood in December of nineteen fifty five
where these people lost their lives.I read that for whatever reason, he
thought that these people that had diedwas coming back. Oh, and so
he really started having some mental issues, and like I said, by January
(13:26):
the following year, nineteen fifty six, he was committed. He stayed there
for a while. They kept himfor about three months and then they released
him. But when they released him, they actually deported him back to Mexico.
In nineteen fifty nine, he findslove again. He's about, I
(13:46):
don't know, twenty five years oldat this time, but he finds love
again, ends up getting married,and him and his wife end up having
four children together. He kept wantingto come to the US. He wanted
to make a better life for himself. So in nineteen sixty two, when
he was about twenty eight, hereturned to the US and he was given
(14:11):
a green card. Trying to dogood, trying to make his life right,
he became a licensed labor contractor andwas put in charge of hiring for
the local fruit ranches there. Everybodysaid he was a very hard worker,
and he really was about it.That's why they kind of put him in
(14:31):
charge of doing all this hiring andeverything. He still had some episodes going
on. Now. I did reada little bit about schizophrenia, and it
says that in schizophrenia you end uphaving continuous or relapsing episodes of psychosis,
and one of the major symptoms islike hallucinations. You hear voices you have
(14:56):
delusions, you have a disorder organizedway of thinking. You can also have
social withdrawal from it, decrease emotionalexpression where you don't really feel empathy,
you know, it's a lack ofemotion. They do say that usually it
develops gradually as you get older,and it starts happening usually around young adulthood.
(15:24):
And he's what twenty five about thistime, right, And he was
twenty one when he first started havingthe episodes after the flood. So you
know, I don't know, maybeput two and two together, but they
usually say schizophrenia is usually not reallyresolved. You can get medication and you
(15:48):
know, right to kind of helpcontrol the symptoms and like delusional breaks and
stuff like that. Right, youhave it forever? Yes, yes,
So in nineteen seventy he was committedagain to the DeWitt State Hospital for treatment.
In nineteen seventy one, he decided, you know what, apparently you
(16:11):
know something is going on, sohe applied for welfare. It was denied.
Now he's thirty seven and he's beenworking over here pretty close to about
ten years. Hard working, likeI said, that's why he was in
charge of the hiring and the firingeverything like that. Around May nineteenth,
(16:33):
nineteen seventy one, one of thefarm owners that Corona worked for noticed that
there was a hole dug in hisorchard. He was like, what is
this? What is going on?So he comes back a little bit later
to check on it, and thehole is filled in. He was like,
I don't, I don't know.That was just really strange. That
(16:56):
just really really weird. He didn'tknow what it was, but he went
ahead and started kind of investigating whatthis hole was. Who did it?
What? Why was this hole inhis orchard? It turns out, I
want to say it was a peachorchard, if I'm not mistaking, I
(17:18):
like peaches. I don't know.While he's investigating this hole, he actually
discovered there was a body inside.Oh whoops. I don't think you can
plant those and grow people. Idon't think so, either. Don't think
how growing the population works. No, I don't. I don't think so
(17:41):
either. Of course, the policeget involved and they come out. They're
doing their investigation, and then theynoticed that there's more looks like freshly recovered
holes, and some that looks likethey've been there for a while, and
they're like, what this is reallyreally weird. So they started digging these
(18:07):
up, and inside they find morebodies of people. And inside some of
these holes there were was a littlebit what they felt very incriminating evidence.
It was all circumstantial, but theyfelt it was It definitely was a good
(18:29):
lead for them, which helped bootboost the case for them. They interviewed
some of the neighbors and some otherpeople. A lot of the neighbors said
that they remember seeing these people,but the last time they seen these people,
they were actually with Juan Corona lookingso good for you, mister Corona.
(18:51):
Well, a lot of these workerswere like middle aged males right with
criminal, questionable bowl type background records, but a lot of them actually stayed
in a bunk house on one ofthe ranches that one supplied workers four.
So to me, it's not reallyweird that one would be seen with these
(19:19):
people because he's the one that doesthe hiring and does the laborers for a
lot of these ranches and everything.But the police find find that they feel,
along with some incriminating evidence that they'vefound, they think that he would
(19:41):
be a good suspect. So inthe very early morning of May twenty six,
nineteen seventy one, The police endup going to Juan Corona's house with
a search warrant and arrested him.They gathered up evidence, took pictures,
(20:03):
you know, and they felt thatthe evidence indicated his guilt. So while
Corona is under arrest, he wasgiven legal aid and a public defender who
hired several psychiatrists to do psychological evaluations. They moved him to a new jail
that they had a new county jailthat they had built in Marysville on May
(20:29):
thirtieth, nineteen seventy one, andthen on June second, nineteen seventy one,
he was taken back to Sutter Countyfor the arrangement. It was closed
to the media and all the public. Nobody could come in, nobody could
watch, Nobody could you know,see what's going on. While this is
all going on, the police arestill doing their investigation. They're still trying
(20:52):
to see what's going on, andyou know, what's happening, what they
can find, what they can't find. Corona pled not guilty. So a
puliminary hearing was set up. Andthis preliminary hearing is where the jury finds
evidence and says that a probable causeto believe that a crime's being committed by
(21:17):
the defendant. The investigation that thepolice were doing finally terminated on June fourth,
nineteen seventy one, and now they'regoing to go to trial. The
public defender that Corona ends up havingwas replaced by a private defense attorney,
and he said, you know what, it's a little gift. Take here.
(21:40):
I'm gonna do this trial for youin exchange for exclusive literary and dramatic
property rights to your life story,including the proceedings that are against you.
M that seems a little sketchy tome, A little sketch. Corona said,
(22:02):
you know what, I mean,I'll take it because I feel a
paid lawyer, even though you're doingit pro bono for free, versus one
who just does it all willy nillyall the time and doesn't get paid for
it and probably just really don't care. I'm gonna take that deal. It's
(22:22):
like, okay, Okay, that'sgreat. So after they Corona agreed to
this, this new attorney said,you know what, I want you to
plead not guilty by reason of insanity. Corona is like okay, and then
the lawyer turns around and fires allthe psychiatrists that were hired previously, and
(22:45):
this lawyer did all this without havingany reports or medical records or anything.
Yeah, definitely sending me some sketchvibes, bro, a little bit of
sketch vibes for sure. Definitely nota level of trust here, No.
No. On June eighteenth, nineteenseventy one, Corona started complaining of chess
(23:10):
pains. He was taken to thehospital and there they did diagnose him with
having a mild heart attack. Ithappened again about two months later in August,
but he was indicted by the grandjury in July. Trial begins September
eleventh, nineteen seventy two, inFairfield, California. Because the lawyer got
(23:36):
a change of venue with this,and since he pled not guilty by reason
of insanity, he wasn't called totestify, and in fact, nobody the
defense didn't call any witnesses at all. I mean, I can see both
sides of that coin, because it'snot the defense's job to say, hey,
(23:59):
my clients sent it's the prosecution's jobto say, hey, no,
this dude is guilty. Well,I mean I get it, I get
it. But at the same time, yeah, yeah, a little bit.
Should understand your client, you wouldthink, I understand, you know,
maybe you don't want to put himon the stand, but maybe you
want to put somebody on the standif he's pleading insanity. Yeah, I
(24:25):
mean, you have somebody on thestand to verify. Yeah, we think
this guy's insane. Yeah, someof the doctors that had treated him before
his brother, you know, maybebecause he had witnessed some episode something,
But he didn't call anybody, okay, But it was presented at trial some
(24:45):
of the evidence that they had gatheredin the orchard, in some of the
holes, it was discovered with thesepeople that were in these holes. One
of the holes actually had a receiptthat had Corona's signature on it, and
in another couple of graves there weredeposit slips that had Corona's name and address
(25:08):
on it. But like I said, he employed these men, So I
mean, would I expect them tohave maybe some stuff from him on their
person. Maybe not specifically, butbut yeah, that's yeah, yeah,
(25:33):
yeah yeah. Well. Also whenthe police had went to his house with
this search warrant, they found whatthey presented as two bloodstained knives, a
machette, a pistol and blood stainedclothes. They also found a book,
(25:56):
a ledger that had aimes of peopleon there. It was a work ledger.
It had like thirty four names anddates on it. The prosecution started
calling it like the death list becauseit turns out that on this list of
(26:17):
thirty four people, there were seventhat were found and could be identified there
in the holes that they found inthe orchard. I mean, that's a
good number out of thirty four,but I don't know that that would make
this a death list. Yeah,well, I mean that's that's what they
(26:37):
called it. Corona is thirty nineyears old. January eighteenth, nineteen seventy
three. The trial is done,jury goes to deliberate. It takes them
forty five hours to reach a verdict, and the verdict was he was guilty
(26:59):
of first degree murder on all twentyfive counts that the grand jury had indicted
him with. Now, total shockon your face. I see that.
But now, in California, theSupreme Court had avoided the death penalty in
(27:21):
February nineteen seventy two, just sixmonths before Corona goes on trial, so
he's not eligible for that exactly.But Corona was given twenty five terms of
life in prison. The judge said, okay, well, these twenty five
years, twenty five terms of lifein prison are going to run consecutively without
(27:48):
the possibility of parole. Despite beinggiven so much time, he would be
eligible for parole in seven years.How because the Penal Code Section six six
nine mandates when a crime is punishableby life in prison with or without parole
(28:11):
possibilities, that all other convictions shallbe merged and run concurrently. And that's
per the Department of Corrections. Buthow does that have anything to do with
making him eligible for parole after sevenyears? Because I guess if you take
(28:32):
twenty five years, that would bethe most he could get because all of
them kind of run together now,right, not stretched out, not twenty
five then twenty five then twenty five. It's basically one twenty five year sentence.
You have to serve half, rightin that what I think. But
(28:52):
I think somehow or another, itturns out that it doesn't have to be
quite half of your sentence that youcan actually be eligible for parole. I
know it's true, but if you'renot eligible for parole, but it states
in there, it doesn't matter it'swith or without the possibility of parole.
(29:15):
That just says that it merges them. That doesn't say that it grants them
the possibility of parole, even ifthey're told they don't have the possibility of
parole. I don't know. That'sweird. Yeah, that doesn't make sense,
so weird, but whatever. SoJuan Corona is sent to Vacaville's California
medical facility first because of his heartirregularities that he was having, and in
(29:42):
nineteen seventy three he ended up beingstabbed thirty two times in his cell.
Wow. Yeah, he lived throughit. He managed to live through it,
and in nineteen seventy four they transferredhim to the Correctional Training and Facility
in Solidad, California, which isabout one hundred and sixty miles from Fairfield.
(30:10):
About this time, his wife islike, you know what we done?
She divorced him. In May ofnineteen seventy eight. The lawyers had
filed for a new trial and itwas granted because they based it on the
lawyer didn't really do a legal andfactual His defense lawyer didn't do diddly squad
(30:34):
exactly. His lawyer didn't request legalor factual investigation findings or anything like that,
and his lawyer got the publication rights, which is definitely you know,
a conflict of interest there. Yeah, so they granted him a new trial,
and the second trial began February twentysecond, nineteen eighty two, in
(31:00):
Hayward, California. Now Corona isabout forty eight at this time, and
Hayward is about one hundred and elevenmiles from Solidad where he was transferred.
He got a new lawyer, andhis new lawyers tried to present the case
that someone else had done all this, and they had fled back to Mexico,
(31:22):
and the persons that they were claiminghad done this had unfortunately just passed
away about eight years before this newtrial took place. Yeah, so let's
blame the dead guy. He can'ttestify, tified on his own behalf,
or defend himself or you know whatever. It's fine. Exactly while he's on
(31:45):
trial, Corona's doing the second trial. They ended up calling the new lawyers
ended up calling over fifty defense witnessesto the stand first as the original zero
exactly. Corona was called to thestand as well, and his lawyer only
asked him two questions. First questionhim, he asked him, was do
(32:09):
you understand this state has accused youof killing twenty five men? Corona suggests.
The lawyer asked him a second question, do you did you have anything
to do with killing these men?And Corona said no. So the trial
(32:30):
goes on and it lasts for likeseven months. Wow, yes, a
long time. Finally ends up wrappingup in September of nineteen eighty two.
The jury had deliberated for fifty fourhours, but Juan Corona was convicted again
(32:54):
again of all twenty five homicides andsent back to prison. He was sent
back to the Korres Correctional Training Facilityin Solodad. So he's transferred to Corcoran
State Prison in Corcoran, California innineteen ninety two, which is about one
(33:15):
hundred and thirty one miles from Solidad, where he was at previously, where
he served his life sentences in thesensitive needs yard. Because by this time
he ended up getting dementia, hewas also denied parole eight times. Juan
(33:37):
Corona ended up passing away March fourth, two thousand and nineteen, at the
age of eighty five from natural causes. Now all the victims. All twenty
five of these victims, all butone were stabbed, slashed with a knife
or a machete. The way Iread all of these victims, like I
(33:59):
said, said, with or withoutthe criminal records, drifters, it doesn't
matter. One was seeing these asthe people that had died in the flood,
and it turns out he was very, very afraid of water. They
were all between the age of Iwant to say, forty three and sixty
(34:24):
seven, sixty eight, something likethat, all twenty five of these men,
and all of these men, likeI said, except for one,
had been cut, slashed something.And at the time of the crimes that
Corona did was among the most notoriousin you as history until the discovery of
(34:50):
Dean Coral's victims down. Like Isaid, it turns out that they considered
Juan Corona one of the deadliest Americanserial killers by number of proven victims.
Yeah, that's my case. Wow, well, thank you, no problem.
(35:16):
It was definitely something else, that'sfor sure. It was. It
was yes, thank you for sharing. Wow, no problem. Wow.
Yeah that's all I got. Yeah, I mean, I like your facial
expression when I was talking about ohyeah, seven of these people out of
(35:40):
twenty five victims that they yes,Wow, Yeah. I didn't want to
just like spill that all Willie Neely. I wanted you to, you know,
think, oh, you know,he did a little bit of here,
a little bit of there. Butyeah, And the funny thing was
all of this, I don't eventhough if I know twenty five people,
(36:04):
I don't. I don't I wantto say that all of this they can
thought that all of these people,these twenty five people were murdered from March
of nineteen seventy one until May ofnineteen seventy one. So just a couple
(36:27):
of months, twenty five. Yes, that's more than one a week.
That's crazy, absolutely crazy. Couldn'tbelieve it. I was like, are
you kidding me? Yeah? Thatthat to me was blue my mind.
Heck, abouts more than two aweek. M Yeah, oh my gosh,
(36:52):
I know, I know it,and I mean it's like he just
he just snapped, Oh, Itake the back. It wasn't March.
It was February February nineteen seventy oneto May of nineteen seventy one. Wow.
Still, that's still a lot exactlyexactly, but he knows a super
(37:13):
short period of time. Yes,he was having some serious issues that he
really didn't get help for the firsttime he was committed. When his brother
had him committed, he actually gotlike shock therapy. He got several rounds
of the shock therapy, but youknow, I guess it really didn't help
(37:37):
because he thought, yeah, yeah, crazy, Well yeah, I don't
think electro shock therapy works. Ithink it outlawed it because it doesn't work.
I know, I know, craziness. So all right, well that's
what I got for you, SoI guess until next time. Yep,
okay. By the contact they contactPO
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