Victims came from all walks of life

The Bakersfield Californian

Some were just starting out in life. Others were entering their golden years. They ranged from 5 months to 81 years of age when they died at the hands of their killers.

In each case, their murderer was sentenced to death. But none have been executed.

Following is a list of the victims.

Crime date: April 9, 1978
James Lee Henderson, 24, of Murrieta; Martha Bernice Soto, 22, and Ingrid M. Etayo, 22, both of Los Angeles, were all shot to death from ambush by David Leslie Murtishaw.

They had been making a student film in the Mojave Desert.

Lance Buflo, Soto's 22-year-old husband, was the lone survivor. He was wounded in the hand.

Henderson, a senior at the University of La Verne in Pomona, was described by a friend at the time as a "happy-go-lucky guy," good-looking and independent of spirit. His parents accepted their son's bachelor's degree less than three months after the triple murder. Students at La Verne dedicated a book of poetry and planted a tree in his memory.

Soto had been a student at Pepperdine University in Malibu for two years, but dropped out in December 1977.

Etayo, described as bright and full of anticipation, was to start post-graduate studies in economics.

Crime date: Jan. 13, 1979
Gregorio Ante, 78, was the patriarch of a large extended family when he was murdered in his own home in east Bakersfield. The father and grandfather used a cane and a walker to get around. "This was a deliberate, brutal killing of a helpless old man, committed for financial gain," then Superior Court Judge Marvin E. Ferguson told Richard Galvan Montiel before sentencing him to death for the second time in 1986.

Crime date: Sept. 12, 1980
Albert Aaron Ginsberg, of Van Nuys, was just 23 when he was robbed and shot to death in Red Rock Canyon by George Allison Carpenter.

Crime date: Jan. 23, 1981
At the time of her murder, Janice D. Allen, 29, was engaged to be married to Dale Boender. She was cooking steaks when Ronald Lee Sanders barged into the couple's home at gunpoint, tied them up and beat them both. Allen died of her injuries while Boender survived the attack.

Crime date: Feb. 5 and 6, 1981
Barbara Levoy, 23, and Robert Don Radford, 18, were engaged to be married before they were murdered by Ward Francis Weaver Jr. Radford, an Air Force cadet, was just beginning what might have become a long military career. Levoy's mother recalled Barbara had plans to start a family "with lots of children."

Crime date: April 7, 1982
Husband and wife Jack and Carol Hayes had been managing the Imperial 400 Motel in Mojave for just a few weeks when they were brutally attacked by Constantino Carrera and an accomplice in the lobby and living areas of the motel. Jack was 55 and Carol was 50. The killers got less than $300.

Crime date: April 17, 1984
Kathy Lynn Hyde, 31, became the random victim of a shotgun killing during an attempted robbery by Clarence Ray Jr. outside a now-defunct Bakersfield tavern. Hyde left behind two children, ages 3 and 8, whom she asked her mother to raise just before she died.

Crime date: September 1984
Maureen Bautista, 38, and her 13-year-old son, Telesforo Bautista III, had lived in an apartment in North Hollywood before they were murdered in east Bakersfield allegedly by Robert Frederick Garceau, Bautista's boyfriend. The two were killed after Bautista reportedly threatened to tell police about Garceau's methamphetamine laboratory in Shandon, about 20 miles east of Paso Robles.*

Crime date: Sept. 4, 1984
Clifford Merck, 75, and Alma Merck, 81, liked to putter around the house, took occasional fishing trips and looked forward to visits from their children. They were killed by Robert Wesley Cowan in their southeast Bakersfield home. Alma had four children by her first husband. Clifford had no children. They were married in the 1960s.

Crime dates: April, 1976; February and November 1984
Joyce Adeline Catlin, 40, was killed by her husband, Steven David Catlin. The welfare department employee was the fourth of six wives to Catlin. She died May 6, 1976, at a Bakersfield hospital of respiratory failure from an unknown cause, which later turned out to be paraquat poisoning. Her body was cremated by order of her husband.

Glenna Kaye Catlin, 35, Steven Catlin's fifth wife, also died of respiratory failure in spring 1984. When wife No. 3, Edith Ballew, heard about Glenna's death, she urged police to test for paraquat.

Even as police were investigating Steven Catlin for the murders, his adoptive mother, Martha Rose Catlin, 79, died at her Fresno home Dec. 8, 1984. A coroner's investigator concluded she died of a stroke, but further tests revealed evidence of paraquat toxicity.

Crime date: Feb. 21, 1986, and Feb. 8, 1987
In her more carefree days, Janine M. Benintende loved horses. Throughout much of her youth in Rhode Island and Los Angeles, she competed in western- and English-style riding competitions with her own horse, Cloudy Day. In her late teens, Benintende reportedly got into drugs. She was working as a prostitute in Bakersfield when she was murdered by David Keith Rogers, a Kern County sheriff's deputy. She was 21.

The beginning of life for Rogers' second victim, 15-year-old prostitute Tracie Joanna Clark, was nearly as difficult as its ending. Her mother had a severe heroin habit, so Tracie had to be hospitalized for several days following her birth in Seattle. Described as a "nice girl, very pleasant," much of Tracie's life turned out to be anything but pleasant. A coroner's investigation determined she was pregnant when she was murdered.

Crime date: Feb. 2 and 3, 1987
Woodrow Wilson Tatman was a 73-year-old invalid who relied on a wheelchair for mobility when he was killed by Teddy Brian Sanchez. He lived on Social Security payments and died in a shabby room at a shabby motel on Union Avenue.

Juan "Johnny" Bocanegra, 61, and his wife, Juanita Bocanegra, 52, apparently also were killed for their Social Security checks. He was a retired salesman; she was a homemaker, according to an obituary published a few days after their murder. The couple left behind two sons, five grandchildren and many other family members.

Crime date: Sept. 6, 1987
Delano High School student Florence "Meme" Hildreth was 17 and lived with her mother when she was raped and murdered by Rodney Berryman. Her death ended what seemed a hopeful and promising future. She was vice president of the Black Student Union, competed in track and was training to become a medical receptionist. She was survived by a large family.

Crime date: July 6, 1989
Marie Margie Axtell, 66, lived in southwest Bakersfield when she was raped and murdered by John Lee Holt. She was survived by five children.

Crime date: Sept. 2, 1989
Vance Huffstutler, 32, was staying with murderer Paul Clarence Bolin at a marijuana farm in the mountains east of Bakersfield. Huffstutler brought Steven Mincy, 30, of Orange to the site where Bolin shot both men to death. A third man escaped into the woods with a shoulder wound. Robert and Donna Mincy, the parents of Steven Mincy, said their son had struggled to find his place in life, but by the time of his death, he had taken seriously his role as father to his young daughter.

Crime date: Sept. 20, 1990
Walter Holt, 67, was killed by Joseph Danks, his cellmate at Tehachapi prison. Little is known of Holt. Danks was known as the Koreatown Slasher for murdering six street people in Los Angeles.

Crime date: Nov. 17, 1991
Grieving relatives remembered 21-month-old Consuelo Verdugo for her bouncing pigtails and sweet charm. They affectionately called her "Chiquita." More than 200 tearful people bid farewell to the toddler at her funeral in Delano. Had she not been killed by her mother's live-in boyfriend, Vicente Figueroa Benavides, in a brutal sexual assault, Consuelo would likely be in the sixth grade.

Crime date: June 18, 1992
Wayne Edwin Emdy, 44, was shot to death by his brother, Corvin Charles Emdy, in his office at 300 Wood St. The victim was married and had two children, a daughter, 17, and a son, 13. Fifteen days after he was sentenced to death, Corvin Emdy killed himself in San Quentin.

Crime date: July 7, 1993
William George Compton was 76, weak from chemotherapy and surgery and believed to be dying of colon cancer when he was stabbed to death at his Oleander-area home in central Bakersfield. Compton had a passion for collecting valuable antique and custom-made weapons. But that passion may have been his undoing as the theft of his collection apparently was the motive for the killing. Christopher Charles Lightsey was convicted in the murder.

Crime date: Dec. 9, 1993
Diana Vara Contreras was 19 years old and weighed just 85 pounds when she was abducted during a shopping trip, robbed and shot to death by Charles Rountree Jr. in an isolated area near Taft. Her parents, siblings and friends knew her as a reliable and kindhearted young woman who worked part-time with developmentally disabled people and studied at Bakersfield College. "She didn't see any evil," her father told The Californian in 1995. "All she saw was goodness in the world."

Crime date: Oct. 28, 1994
Mary Rose Breck, was a 40-year-old wife, mother and bookstore owner when Bob Russell Williams Jr. sexually assaulted and murdered her in her Oaks neighborhood home in southwest Bakersfield. At her funeral, Breck's brother told the congregation that his sister was a private woman who wouldn't have wanted the kind of attention that came with her death.

Crime date: Sept. 11, 1995
Shirley D. Jordan, 48, and her only child, Joseph "Joey" Jordan, 10, lived in a modest apartment in Oildale when they were killed by Richard McWhorter. Joey attended Beardsley School, was active as a Cub Scout and was known among his friends as a gentle peacemaker. The mother and son were survived by Shirley Jordan's parents in Oklahoma and Joey's father, who had not lived with the family for many years.

Crime dates: 1994 and 1996
Life for 5-month-old Tyler Ransom had barely begun when he was violently shaken to death by his mother's live-in boyfriend, Frank Jay Alvarez, in 1994.

Dylan Vincent was a diminutive 4-year-old in 1996 when he was beaten to death by Alvarez. Friends and family described him as sweet and quiet.

Crime date: May 20, 1997
Alicia Corey Manning, 22, was only three weeks away from graduating from Cal State Bakersfield when she was stabbed to death by Willie Leo Harris in her Bakersfield apartment. Friends described her as introverted, shy and intent on her studies. She and her boyfriend had planned to move back to her home state of Virginia where Manning had a job waiting. She was survived by her mother and father, two brothers and other family and friends.

Crime date: Oct. 14, 1997
Arvin High School football standout Chad Yarbrough was just 17 when he was abducted at gunpoint and shot to death by Juan Villa Ramirez. Teachers and friends remembered him as a decent person, well-liked and fun to be around. He was survived by his parents, siblings and many other family members and friends

* Robert Garceau's conviction was overturned by the 9th Circuit Court of appeal Wednesday.

SOURCE: Californian articles, court records and living relatives.

Compiled by Californian staff writer Steven Mayer