1971 — Feb 25-May 21, Juan Corona migrant farm worker killings, near Yuba City, CA-25

–25 Stout. “Juan corona, 85, Convicted as Killer of 25 Farm Workers, Dies.” NYT, 3-4-2019.
–25 (Murder convictions) Wikipedia. “Juan Corona.” 2-26-2022 edit.

Narrative Information

Stout, NYT: “Juan V. Corona, who joined the grim pantheon of America’s serial killers when he was convicted of slaughtering 25 migrant workers and burying them on farms near his home in the Sacramento Valley in California, died on Monday. He was 85.

“A statement by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said he had died at a hospital near the state prison in Corcoran, in the south-central part of the state, where for almost a half-century he had been serving 25 concurrent life sentences for first-degree murder.

“Mr. Corona’s victims were luckless drifters who moved from farm to farm, scratching out a bare existence in the valley’s orchards, groves and vineyards. No one seemed to miss these ‘fruit tramps,’ as the locals called them, when they disappeared. The killings came to light after a peach farmer spotted a fresh hole in one of his orchards near Yuba City on May 19, 1971. When he returned to investigate later that day, the hole had been filled in. Suspicious, the farmer called the Sutter County sheriff’s office. Deputies dug up the body of a man. He had been stabbed in the chest and his head had been split open. A search of the orchards in the vicinity revealed other graves, some freshly dug, some made weeks before. The digging went on for days, until 25 corpses had been unearthed. The victims ranged in age from about 40 to the mid-60s. All had been hacked and stabbed. One had been shot as well.

“Store receipts and bank-deposit slips found in some graves were linked to Mr. Corona, a stocky man in his late 30s who was described in 1971 as a Mexican-born resident alien. As a licensed labor contractor, he had recruited field hands from bars and other places where migrant workers gathered. His wife sometimes cooked for them. A search of his house in Yuba City turned up a bloodstained machete and a ledger with the names of victims. Blood was found in his pickup truck.

“Mr. Corona maintained his innocence for years. Then, at a parole hearing on Dec. 5, 2011, he admitted his crimes, apparently for the first time in a public forum. (He was reported to have confessed before to a prison psychologist.) Asked if he knew why he was in prison, Mr. Corona replied, ‘Well, I commit all those — those dead persons, 25.’ When asked why he had killed them, he gave a rambling answer in which he called the victims ‘winos’ and ‘creeps’ who had been ‘trespassing.’ It was the closest he ever came to saying why he did it. Prosecutors never offered a motive.

“With a wife, Gloria, and four young daughters, Juan Vallejo Corona seemed an unlikely killer. But he had trouble in his past. A flood that killed dozens of people in Sutter County in late 1955 had apparently left him unhinged, convinced that the people around him were the ghosts of those who had drowned. A half-brother, Natividad Corona, committed him to a mental hospital in early 1956. He was released months later, after undergoing electroshock treatments for schizophrenia. For a time he seemed to have a stable life, working his way up from farm laborer to labor contractor. He went to church.

“Yet he was known to be quick-tempered and a brooder. In March 1970 he began another monthslong stay in a mental hospital. The next year, with increasing mechanization hurting his business, he applied for welfare. When his application was denied, he flew into a rage, a welfare official recalled.

“Then came the horrific discoveries in the orchards and the ensuing trials, which had elements of farce as well as horror and cost the taxpayers millions of dollars.

“The first trial began on Sept. 11, 1972, in the Solano County city of Fairfield, east of San Francisco, after the defense was granted a change of venue. In the courtroom, the defendant’s wife shouted, ‘Good luck, Juan!’ One of Mr. Corona’s sisters was later arrested, charged with obstructing the entrance to the courthouse by lying down outside it and refusing to move.

“The trial was embarrassing for both sides. Prosecutors were found to have misplaced or mishandled evidence, and forensic tests that ought to have been done early on were delayed. At one point a prosecutor improperly suggested that Mr. Corona’s refusal to testify suggested that he was guilty. The judge, who repeatedly expressed dismay at the prosecutors’ performance, reminded the jury that the burden of proof rested totally on the prosecution. Mr. Corona was convicted on Jan. 18, 1973, and sentenced to life in prison. (The California Supreme Court had overturned the state’s death penalty months before the trial.)….

“In May 1978, a California appeals court overturned the conviction, declaring that Mr. Corona’s defense had been inept and compromised. The second trial was held in Hayward, in Alameda County, near San Francisco and lasted from Feb. 22 to Sept. 23, 1982. Represented by a new defense team, Mr. Corona took the stand, insisting that he was innocent. (His wife was not there; she had divorced him in 1974.)….” (Stout, David. “Juan corona, 85, Convicted as Killer of 25 Farm Workers, Dies.” New York Times, 3-4-2019.)

Sources

Stout, David. “Juan corona, 85, Convicted as Killer of 25 Farm Workers, Dies.” New York Times, 3-4-2019. Accessed 3-3-2022 at: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/04/obituaries/juan-corona-dead.html

Wikipedia. “Juan Corona.” 2-26-2022 edit. Accessed 3-3-2022 at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Corona