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Welcome to the Serial Killer Podcast, the podcast dedicated to serial killers. Who they were, what they did, and how. I am your Norwegian host, Tamas Weyborg Thun, and tonight we are back in sunny California to continue our tale of the Machete Murderer.
We left last week's episode as the investigators thought they had control of Juan V. Corona's crimes. Tonight, we delve deeper into what made Corona one of the top five most prolific serial killers in the United States, and what ultimately resulted in his downfall. Intro
So, once more, dear listener, join me under the warm Californian sun, near a prune orchard, deeper in the woods.
You see, as the investigators did, even more disturbed earth. The disturbed areas looked a lot like the gravesites found not too far away recently. It looked like there were quite a lot of them as well. So the investigators called for assistance and started to dig. This time, they found even more bodies. Around twice as many.
In one grave, a man had papers on his person and was able to be identified, as well as linked to Corona. His head had nearly been removed from his body from the force of the blow that had ended his life. His wallet, lying atop him, had been searched, but the ID was left intact.
As the press got wind of this unfolding drama, journalists came in from other areas to write about the victims and the suspect. Corona's ledger, found during the raids on his property, was dubbed the Murder Book, and as the newspapers printed the story,
People who feared that a loved one might be among the victims sent letters of inquiry, and or made calls to the sheriff's office to find out more. The response overwhelmed the staff, who were used to inquiries about simple theft, drunken behavior, and perhaps a lover's quarrel. There were over 1,500 such requests. A lot of people, it turned out,
had not heard from a relative in a long time. Many families hit the road driving to the Sullivan Ranch to have a look for themselves. In addition, morbid tourists arrived to take photographs, posing with shovels alongside the vehicle that Corona had used to transport workers.
The sheriff roped off the graves to avoid contamination, and eventually sealed off the entrances to the ranch. The investigators and volunteers worked hard over Memorial Day weekend, digging everywhere, just to be sure they had not missed a victim. At least one had been buried in a solitary location, so it was possible there was more like that.
While the district attorney certainly had more than enough victims for an investigation and trial, detectives knew that they had to keep working for the families as well. The victims were dead, and their pain was over. But for their loved ones, the pain had just begun, and they needed and deserved justice and answers.
With each passing day, reporters camped out to be right there when another body came out of the ground. Bets were lost as the number rose from ten to sixteen to twenty, and the digging continued. The search for bodies finally ended on the 4th of June. By that time, the toll was twenty-five.
and all of them had been migrant workers, and all of them was found on this one ranch, and as such it was not implausible to believe that there were more victims not yet found. The facts were simply such that it was impossible to go from one ranch to another to dig in every area, where the ground seemed to dip. As one source indicated,
All of the victims had been buried on the north side of a tree, with their arms over their heads, as if there were some ritual or superstition involved. None were Mexican, and all but three were Anglo-Saxon whites. Those three were black or Native American. The youngest victim was forty, the oldest sixty-eight.
Given their rootless mode of life, the process of identifying them proved to be arduous. But finally, twenty-one were identified, and their relatives notified. A few had been in the earth for as long as two months. One victim was not identified until many years later, and three we will probably never know the identity of.
One thing that strikes me, dear listener, as odd in this case, is how difficult it has been to find the names of the victims. The number 25 keeps being mentioned in various sources, but very few names. I have, however, managed to find the names of 22 of the known victims, in honor of their memory.
I will now read their names to you. John Henry Jackson John Joseph Haluka
John Raggio Smallwood, Jose Romero Raya, Joseph J. Majak, Kenneth Edward Whittaker, Lloyd Wallace Wenzel, Mark Beverly Shields, Milford Everett Sample, Paul Buell Allen, Raymond Riyand Muchachi, Sigurd Emil Beiermann,
Warren, Jerome, Kelly, William, Emery. Evidence kept piling up. In one grave, diggers had unearthed bank deposit slips printed with Juan Corona's name. That gave an added boost to the case. But, even as this evidence seemed fairly damning, the case was anything but a slam dunk.
Prematurely, the sheriff gave a press conference to announce that they had the man they believed was responsible for the crimes in custody already. He named Corona and made the mistake of convicting him right then and there in the press, before the evidence had been examined or a trial had proven him guilty. Corona was booked on murder charges.
and in the meantime, they would prepare for trial with what evidence they had. Corona was initially assigned a public defender, who proceeded to hire several psychiatrists to do a mental evaluation. As reporters dug around, his background was pieced together.
He was a labor contractor, making around $20,000 a year, and considered a solid family man with four daughters. He was reportedly a very religious man who never missed church services. There were no stories that anyone could discover of abuse done to workers, just a few complaints that he did not pay enough for work done.
The ranchers who hired him to bring them workers tended to like and respect him, and while the victims were mostly white men, Corona's crews consisted of mostly workers from Mexico. One reporter actually met him in prison, a year into the case. In his prison cell back in 1971, Corona seemed sad and worn out, but humble. A defense psychiatrist said,
Having interviewed and examined Corona, believed he was aware of what he was doing, and did not suffer from a mental disorder. Yet a prosecution psychiatrist had decided that the defendant was psychotic. This is, especially in America, usually the other way around. Although Corona reportedly had an IQ of 130,
He did not read much and spoke only broken English. The past time, he was taking lessons in painting and hoping to apply for U.S. citizenship. But overall, he appeared to be depressed. About a month after Corona's arrest, an attorney named Richard Hawke arrived in Yuba City and took over the case.
He fired the psychiatrists, dismissing their findings, and instigated a hefty lawsuit against the county officials, citing improper evidence handling, violation of Corona's rights, slander, and causing emotional distress. All as a warning that he meant business.
He also let reporters see the evidence, which violated the gag order imposed on all officials in the case. The evidence turned out to be not that impressive as one might think. The names of half a dozen men appeared on the ledger found in Corona's office, but the prosecution's handwriting expert could not say with assurance that Corona himself had written those names.
And even if he had, that would not necessarily mean he had murdered them. Alongside, the names were a few dates. As for the forensic tests, blood evidence turned out to be paint or animal blood, and no blood had been found on the machete.
Blood in one of Corona's vehicles was explained as originating from an injured worker whom he had transported. On the only victim who wasn't too decomposed for an examination of whether the machete matched the wounds, it turned out that there was no conclusive link.
The tire tracks also did not match any of Corona's vehicles, nor the bullet removed from one victim's to Corona's gun, and no analysis had been done on the receipts to prove that only Corona had handled them, or to link the receipts via date to the proper rate of decomposition of the victim in whose grave they were found.
To make matters even more complicated for the prosecutors, Corona had an alibi as well. During the time when many of the victims had been attacked, he had been on crutches. Defense attorney Hawke even considered having Corona testify on his own behalf, believing he'd make an excellent witness. People tended to want a case like this closed cleanly.
sometimes even ambiguous evidence, worked for juries because they just wanted an end to it all. Defense attorneys realized that. Hawke realized that. So did the district attorney. The trial began on the 11th of September, 1972.
in the Solano County Courthouse in Fairfield, California, more than an hour from Yuba City. Jury selection took several weeks, and the trial itself another three months. Richard Hawke believed he could show that Juan's half-brother had been the killer, not Juan. Since the California Supreme Court had overturned the death penalty,
Commuting to life all death row sentences, it would not be a so-called capital case. It was Prosecutor Tejas' first experience with prosecuting first-degree murder, and while he followed the case every step of the way, he did not bother to have the blood found on the two knives in Corona's office tested for the blood types of any of the victims.
It was a crucial oversight, and he had to scramble in the end to get the test results in time. This angered the judge. Teja also got new handwriting experts to compare the ledgers against Corona's handwriting, and asked for hair samples from the defendant for testing.
Yet a cigarette butt in the grave with the meat receipts tested positive for a blood type that matched neither Corona nor the victim. Despite the circumstantial logic, no physical evidence, at least going into the trial, supported Teja's case.
Then it turned out that the tire track cast that had been compared to the tires from Corona's vehicles was not the cast made at the first grave. Someone had mixed up the evidence from a different case. Finally, the correct cast was located and sent for analysis.
From the FBI lab in Washington, D.C., the report supposedly indicated an extreme likelihood that the tires that made the impressions at the gravesite were those on Corona's van. If there's one thing that my family and friends know me for, it's being an amazing gift giver. I owe it all to Celebration's Passport from 1800flowers.com, my one-stop shopping site that has amazing gifts for every occasion. With
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I know firsthand how extremely difficult it is to make time for self-care. But it's good to have some things that are non-negotiable. For some, that could be a night out with the boys, chugging beers and having a laugh. For others, it might be an eating night. For me, one non-negotiable activity is researching psychopathic serial killers and making this podcast.
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Since the police still had Corona's van in custody, they could have faked the evidence. He requested bail for his client for the seventh or eighth time since the case had begun, and again it was denied. Nevertheless, Judge Richard Patton scolded the prosecution for not giving him solid reason for denying bail, which was their job to do.
During the early weeks, the trial would continue to show prosecutorial ineptness, as they pleaded for more time to finish forensic testing that should have been done months earlier. It did not look good to the jury, and one member who was later bumped for illness said as much to Hawke.
That likely gave Hawk the wrong impression of where the case was going. Hawk attacked again and again, pointing out one error made after another, made by most of the officials involved. There was no doubt that the investigation and handling of bodies had been done badly, and that reports were both incomplete and inaccurate.
To some extent, given the conditions during the lengthy and unappetizing dig, it was understandable. As well, no one in that county had ever dealt with a case like that before. And so, evidence handling was rather unprofessional, with deputies leaving their own fingerprints on items yet to be dusted. It was, simply put, a case full of holes.
Corona himself remained stoic and mute throughout the proceedings, showing polite respect to his attorney, fully supported by his angry and unhappy family. One sister had come from Mexico to attend each day's proceedings, and his four children were always there. Occasionally, he looked back at them. At a time no one had ever been tried on this many murder charges, all twenty-five,
Even the judge questioned why the people had elected to include them all, which considerably lengthened the trial and strained the county resources. But the strategy was to overwhelm the jury with the sheer brutality of a man who could kill and bury so many men over such a short span of time. Yet they had not been able to prove that Corona was homosexual.
and originally the case had rested on the idea that some sort of homosexual liaison had inspired the crimes. This information was Hawke's attempt to bring natividad into the picture. He was already known to be gay, so it was a small step to implicate him as the shamed partner who might repeatedly kill
But the police, in their inefficiency, had never even investigated the possibility of any other suspect, let alone an equally viable one. Hawke was not allowed to name Natividad during his opening statement without clear evidence, but the implication hung in the air, strengthened by Hawke's occasional hints.
Frazier, Hawke made it clear that the chief suspect had killed the man in rage over a case of syphilis that he'd contracted during some incidents of casual sex. As the case moved along, reporters and jury members alike grew bored and confused.
The predictions lined up against Teja and his team, as they appeared to have thrown together a stickhouse in a hurricane. But there were yet some surprises in store, notably from the defense. One witness, Byron Shannon, had said that he'd seen Corona pick up several of the victims in his truck, so he offered key testimony for the prosecution. However—
His credibility came under attack, and in the end he was so confused that he himself seemed uncertain as to what he had actually seen. Following him came several forensic experts. The machete was a key piece of evidence, even though no blood had been found on it, and it did not fit the wounds of the first victim discovered. The prosecution's experts
described the kinds of cuts that such a weapon could leave on a surface, and he said that other victims who had been too decomposed for wound analysis nevertheless could not be ruled out as having been cut by such a blade.
In a way, he left it open for the defense to prove otherwise, which was not Hawk's job. So Hawk turned the tables back around. He had only to prove reasonable doubt, he later told reporters.
A ballistics expert said that the bullet removed from the only victim who had been shot, William Camp, while not traceable to Corona's gun, was the right caliber and make for being fired from Corona's pistol. Nevertheless, the blood found on its barrel did not match Camp's blood type. Teja merely said that it could have been used to bludgeon one of the other victims.
Hawke pointed out that no blood analysis proved that. A pathologist testified that the knives found in Corona's office could have made the chest wounds on some of the victims, but he was unable to say with any certainty that they had. Hawke pounded this home to the jury. Stains found on clothing in Corona's possession and in his vehicles had proven to be blood,
But there was not much of it, so Hawk insisted that had he been the killer, there should have been much more than one might find in the ordinary person's home from common accidents. Bloodstains proved nothing, especially since not one had been definitely linked to any of the victims.
Prosecutor Teja had found some handwriting experts to indicate that samples of Corona's writing were consistent with some of the letters found in some of the names written into the now infamous ledger. Yet his analysis was still not overwhelming, and so it was.
that a third prosecutor, Ronald Fahey, entered the case in November. He had plenty of trial experience, and he used it to go after Hawk, with both attorneys seeking any excuse to undermine the other. While it evened the playing ground somewhat, the judge often had to break up their petty squabbles.
In short, the case got cluttered and unwieldy, but neither side had a clear advantage, so these attorneys were reduced to personal attacks and to promoting themselves among the press corps. After 113 witnesses and months of testimony, the prosecution rested its case. Then Hawke got up and shocked the court.
First, he asked for a directed verdict that would essentially dismiss the case. He wanted an acquittal, based on the fact that there was no evidence to support the charges. When he did not get what he'd requested, he told the judge that he too rested his case. He had no witnesses to call, despite promising in his opening statement to name the true murderer.
He apparently believed that the prosecution had done a sufficient amount of bungling. There was no need to do anything but allow the jury to condemn them for it. Hawke probably relied very much on the principle of reasonable doubt, and that the jury would reward his clients for the prosecution's many mistakes. In any case, it was a bold and somewhat arrogant move.
Both sides summarized their cases in closing arguments. Essentially, Richard Hawke offered an alternate suspect, but did not address the fact that no one had been able to place Natividad in the area during the time in which the murders had occurred. According to later researchers, Natividad had been nowhere near Yuba City during the time of the murders.
He had also fled the U.S. after the case against him was settled, selling everything and buying a one-way ticket home. Since then, he'd been ill. After Prosecutor Fahey gave the final rebuttal, the case went to the jury. Their first ballot was 7-5 for acquittal. So clearly, Hawke had gotten the right impression.
In fact, the jury did tell the judge at one point that they had reached an impasse. They were to take 16 more votes over the next 46 hours of deliberation. And in January of 1973, the jury convicted Corona of all 25 counts of first-degree murder, more than anyone in America at the time.
Corona received 25 life sentences, with the possibility of parole. The jury members who talked about it later said that Hawk had made a mistake resting his case without using any witnesses. But it was not over yet. The case was appealed. By the end of his first year at the California Medical Facility in Vacaville,
Corona was attacked by four other inmates. They slashed and stabbed him 32 times, so that he nearly died. Allegedly, he then confessed to the murders to a priest. He lost an eye in this incident, but he recovered. The priest was not allowed to reveal the confession, but somehow it got into some accounts about Kay's death.
And there were two more confessions. In 1978, Mexican consular official Jesús Rodríguez Navarro visited Corona in prison. Later he quoted the convicted man as saying, Yes, I did it, but I am a sick man, and sick man cannot be judged by the same standards as other men.
That same year, he also agreed to a plea deal by confessing to the murders in a letter to Judge Patton. Five years after the first trial ended, a California appeals court reviewed Corona's trial records and found that attorney Richard Hawke had not competently represented his client.
He had attacked the police, instead of exploring other options, such as a defense of mental incompetence, and the fact he had called no witnesses for the defense. In February 1982, Corona was back in court for a new trial. It took place in Hayward, California, and lasted nearly twice as long as the first trial. Richard Fahey once again prosecuted it,
but a better defense team took on Corona's case. Although several key witnesses were dead, the trial moved forward. Over a period of seven months, 1,300 exhibits were admitted and 175 witnesses took to stand.
Once again, no one offered any of the mental incompetence defences that the appeals court had expected. Juan's half-brother, Natividad, was again held up to the jury as a viable suspect, and the police investigation was thoroughly criticised.
Corona himself took the stand to testify on his own behalf. Speaking through an interpreter, he denied any involvement in the crimes. The jury took even longer this time, 54 hours over two weeks, and they returned a verdict of guilty.
The jury foreman told the press that the most incriminating piece of evidence against Corona had been the so-called death ledger, for which the labor contractor had quote-unquote no reasonable explanation. Corona's sentence of 25 concurrent life terms was restored, with parole hearings every four years.
The defense attorney requested a third trial based on jury misconduct, but this was denied. To this day, several people believe that Corona was railroaded, but there are even more, on record, that believe he's guilty of even more murders than came to light in this case.
Two juries were convinced, despite the mismanaged investigation, that one Corona and no other murdered those 25 men. Mr. Corona maintained his innocence for years. Then, at a parole hearing on the 5th of December 2011, he admitted his crimes, apparently for the first time in a public forum.
Asked if he knew why he was in prison, Corona replied, Well, I commit all those... those... dead persons. Twenty-five. 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. When asked if he felt remorse, Corona gave a meandering answer,
Then he said, so I went and buy the machete, and then, okay, I started killing, when I had to kill all those persons one by one. At another point in the parole hearing, he said he must have been sick in my thinking. Juan Vallejo Corona died on the 25th of February this year, 2019.
A statement by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said he had died at a hospital near the state prison in Corcoran, where he had served out most of his time. He was 85 years old. The new Boost Mobile Network is offering unlimited talk, text, and data for just $25 a month. For life. That sounds like a threat. Then how do you think we should say it? Unlimited talk, text, and data for just $25 a month for the
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Next week I will introduce you to a fresh new Serial Killer Expo say. So, as they say in the land of radio, stay tuned. I have been your host, Thomas Weyborg Thun, and this podcast would not be possible if it had not been for my dear patrons, who pledge their hard-earned money every month.
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