Five men have been arrested in a gruesome multiple murder in a remote area of the Mojave Desert in San Bernardino County. Six men were shot to death (and four of them also suffered serious burns) in Tuesday's incident, authorities say. Their bodies were scattered in the middle of the desert landscape.
The motive behind the violence was a dispute over marijuana, investigators say. Possible connections to cartel activity are being explored.
The San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department served search warrants in Apple Valley, Adelanto and the Piñon Hills area of Los Angeles County, identifying five suspects in the murders, which took place in the community of El Mirage, police said. authorities on Monday.
Investigators arrested Toniel Báez-Duarte, 34; Mateo Báez-Duarte, 24; José Nicolás Hernández-Sarabia, 33; José Gregorio Hernández-Sarabia, 34; and José Manuel Burgos Parra. 26.
“The moment we began this investigation, we began to receive strong leads,” San Bernardino County Sheriff Shannon Dicus said at a news conference Monday night.
On Tuesday at 8:16 p.m., dispatchers received a 911 call, according to Michael Warrick, sergeant with the Sheriff's Department's specialized investigation division.
The caller, speaking in Spanish, “told dispatchers that he was shot,” Warrick said, “but he didn't know where he was and it seemed like the call ended.”
Dispatchers traced the coordinates of the phone call to an area near Lessing Avenue and Shadow Mountain Road, off U.S. Highway 395. U.S. Highway 395, a long north-south corridor, runs from Interstate 15 in Hesperia, California, to Carson City, Nevada. , to the border with Canada.
With the help of the California Highway Patrol's air operations unit, officers discovered the crime scene with multiple gunshot victims and two vehicles, a Dodge Caravan and a Chevy Trailblazer. One of the vehicles had bullet holes. The desolate area surrounding the crime scene, about 50 miles northeast of Los Angeles, was littered with cardboard, rubber tires and broken bottles.
About an hour later, deputies from the Victor Valley Sheriff's Station arrived and found four men killed with severe burns, a fifth man deceased in the Chevy Trailblazer, and a sixth victim deceased a short distance away.
Four of the six have been identified. The name of one of them, a 45-year-old man, is being withheld until his closest relatives are notified. The last two victims have not yet been identified.
Those identified are Baldemar Mondragón-Albarrán, 34 years old; Franklin Noel Bonilla, 22; and Kevin Dariel Bonilla, 25 years old.
Warrick said Franklin Bonilla was the person who called 911 for help.
The identified victims were Latino, possibly Honduran. They lived in Adelanto and Hesperia, authorities said.
Investigators said all of the victims suffered fatal gunshot wounds; Four of the men are believed to have been burned by the suspects at the scene.
“We are still conducting a follow-up investigation, but we are confident we have arrested all of the suspects in this case,” Warrick said.
In serving the arrest warrants, detectives recovered eight firearms, which will undergo forensic examination to determine if any were used in the murders, he said.
When asked if the killings could be cartel-related, Warrick said he couldn't comment yet, but there were “certain things in the scene that show a level of violence that obviously raises some interesting questions for us.”
The five suspects were arrested Sunday on suspicion of murder and are being held without bond pending a review of the case by the San Bernardino County District Attorney's Office.
Illegal marijuana grows are a problem in the area, Dicus said during Monday's news conference.
Recreational marijuana and registered marijuana grows are legal in California. Dicus, however, cited the black market for marijuana as a cause of violence.
“The plague is the marijuana black market and certainly cartel activity, and there are several victims out there,” he said.
