Jose Garcia: California man receives death penalty in emotional hearing for 'heinous' quadruple murder
PALM SPRINGS, CALIFORNIA: A judge supervising the case on Friday, February 10, sentenced a California man to death in an ultimately pointless gesture after he was found guilty of killing four people in Palm Springs five years ago.
A peer-led jury in Riverside County first sentenced 24-year-old Jose Vladimir Larin-Garcia to death in February 2023.
Jose Garcia found guilty of 'heinous crimes'
According to a press release from the Riverside County District Attorney's Office, Riverside County Superior Court Judge Anthony Villalobos upheld that sentence on Friday.
District Attorney Mike Hestrin remarked, “The death penalty is reserved for those who have truly proven themselves to be without remorse for actions that are among the most egregious imaginable.”
Hestrin went on to say, “The decision made today is not one made lightly, but reflects the heinous nature of these crimes, committed by a man who took so much away from so many people, for something so inconsequential.”
Larin-Garcia killed Juan Duarte-Raya, 18, Carlos Campos-Rivera, 25, Yuliana Garcia, 17, and Jacob Montgomery, 19, on February 3, 2019. Three of the victims were in a car with the man who has since been found guilty.
Eventually, Campos-Rivera and the quartet met up near his Canon Drive apartment complex. There, Campos-River was fatally shot twice by Larin-Garcia, once in the head.
A witness testified during the trial that she could hear the other passengers in the car screaming in terror as the car raced away. After that, there were several gunshots, and the vehicle collided with another at Sunny Dunes Road.
Jose Garcia was found drenched in victims' blood
Every victim had head wounds from gunshots, according to investigators. On one of her hands, Yuliana Garcia also had a protective wound. Larin-Garcia was found hiding under a truck two blocks from the scene of the crash.
He was drenched in the blood of the victims, and his jacket and shoes were missing.
The convicted killer would eventually escape wearing his hospital gown after being brought to a hospital for treatment of minor wounds that were later determined to be abrasions.
The following day, while trying to leave the state for Florida on a Greyhound bus, he was apprehended again. He had changed his clothes and assumed a new name.
In March 2022, following accusations of the killings, a mistrial was proclaimed. On February 6, 2023, following his second trial, he was found guilty on four counts of first-degree murder.
The jury also found that he used a gun to commit the crime, and they evaluated the special circumstances of his lying in wait and killing several victims, which is the Golden State equivalent of an enhanced sentence.
'One of the most difficult cases,' says Judge
Larin-Garcia is currently incarcerated. Since 2006, when actor Arnold Schwarzenegger was governor of California, the state has not executed a death row prisoner.
Based on a Desert Sun courtroom report, the judge upheld the sentence during a heartbroken hearing filled with lament for the dead and denunciations of their killer.
"This is one of the most difficult cases I’ve sat on," Villalobos remarked before sending Larin-Garcia to the prospect of dying in public execution at a later date.
“No one here is walking away unscathed. There is no way to make this right. The only thing I can do is what the law provides,” the judge added.
Throughout the hearing, numerous victim impact statements were given. Deputy District Attorney Samantha Paixao read a letter written by Campos Rivera's son, who was 10 years old at the time of his father's murder.
“There are no words to describe how this has impacted me,” the prosecutor reportedly read.
“How am I supposed to articulate something that has turned my life completely upside down? I had everything in the world at that point until I lost my best friend in the world, my dad. I still can’t understand why you would do such an evil thing,” the child said in the statement.
