El Mirage murders: 6 dull, 5 arrested following ‘dispute over marijuana’ | LiveNOW from FOX

We want to take you out next to Southern California where we're getting an update from officials in a mysterious investigation after six bodies were found in a remote desert in San Bernardino County let's listen in here as they release new information next about six victims of homicide that we found in the northern remote area.

Just north of the city of atlanto as a result of that I want to say thank you for all of your patience I know we've seen numerous requests as to what really caused that homicide and what information that we had as it related to that homicide and I want to tell you that from the moment we started this investigation we started to receive.

Strong leads and after I was briefed I was quite confident that we'd be able to get the subjects that were involved in this homicide into custody and with that and that's the tireless efforts from our homicide team from our specialized enforcement detail and the Victor Valley Station I'm pleased to announce that the five.

Suspects that you see on this chart to my right were those responsible for this homicide before I introduced the sergeant that was in charge of this investigation and led this investigation we use some human source and technological sources to be able to identify the suspects in this case I would please ask your patients once.

Again the da is currently reviewing the filing for this case and there may be some questions that we're unable to answer and we'll let you know what those are and with that I'd like to introduce Sergeant Mike War to go through some of the details of this case Mike all right uh good afternoon my name is Sergeant Michael wari that's m i h a.

L w a r r i c k can microphone closer to you please thank you yes is this better all right um I'm a sergeant with the specialized investigation division homicide detail um our specialized investig ation division uh has been working on this around the clock to bring uh these people to Justice and Justice for our victims um they were.

Murdered in uh the remote area north of atlanto in sardino County uh I appreciate the public and the media's patience uh with us uh which allowed our team to focus our efforts in finding those responsible I want to remind everyone this is still an active investigation and we will not be able to disclose all the facts of this case what.

I can confirm is on Tuesday January 23rd 2024 at approximately 2016 hours dispatchers relieved received a 911 call from a subject who spoke Spanish the caller told dispatchers he was shot but he did not know the location he was at and it appeared the call ended dispatchers tracked the phone uh via latitude and.

Longitude coordinates to remote area and the unincorporated uh atlanto area near lesing Avenue due to the remote location California Highway Patrol Airship assisted our deputies and conducted an extensive search Once overhead the area uh officers discovered a crime scene uh and what appeared to be multiple gunshot.

Wound victims two vehicles and uh one of the vehicles was apparently shot uh had multiple gun gunshot strikes in it uh the two vehicles were Dodge Caravan and a Chevy Trailblazer at approximately 20 40 hours deputies from the Victor Valley station arrived on scene and located four deceased males with severe burns a fifth.

Deceased male was located in the Chevy Trailblazer and a six deceased male uh a short distance away uh who sustained a gunshot wound our Sheriff's homicide investigators assumed the investigation to process the scene and find those responsible for these heinous acts of violence I can confirm four of the six victims have been identified uh the name.

Of the fourth victim is still being withheld pending next ofkin notification uh victim number one is Balmar M Dragon alarin uh 34-year-old uh resident of atlanto victim number two Franklin Noel Bonia 22-year-old Hispanic male male adult from Hisperia victim number three Kevin daral.

Bonia 25-year-old Hispanic male adult uh resident of asparia victim number four was a 45-year-old Hispanic male adult um victims five and six have yet to be identified um investigators believe Franklin Bonia was a subject who called 911 after being shot by the suspects to give you a timeline took us about a day and a half to process the.

Extensive crime scene with six deceased victims multiple vehicles and to collect the evidence we also had to work with the sheriff's Corners division to perform the autopsies on the six victims to determine cause of death I can confirm all victims had apparent fatal gunshot injuries additionally four of the six were burned at the location by.

The suspects as far as the motives uh we are confident that this appears to be a dispute over marijuana which resulted in the murders our investigators combed through evidence collected at the scene and followed up on information provided by the community Through extensive investigation with the assistance of the.

Sheriff's narcotics and specialized enforcement division on Sunday January 28th 2023 we were able to serve multiple search warrants in the town of Apple Valley atanto and the Los Angeles County area of pinion Hills we arrested five suspects involved in the murder of the six victims the suspects are identified as.

Tonel bz duerte age 34 uh resident of Apple Valley Mato bz duerte aged 24 resident of Apple Valley Jose Nicholas Hernandez Sarabia age 33 resident of atlanto Jose Gario Hernandez cabia age 34 resident of atlanto Jose Manuel Bergos para uh age 26 resident of atlanto our detectives recovered evidence uh including eight Firearms our.

Scienti scientific investigations division will forensically process the evidence and determine if any of those firearm were the Firearms used in our murders um we are still conducting follow-up investigation but we are confident we have arrested all the subject all the suspects in this case they are currently in custody with no.

Bail pending a review of the case from the sanino County District Attorney's office I'm proud of the work uh I'm proud of the work my team done did uh they spent Sleepless hours bringing Justice to the family victim and their families I can now I'll take some questions I two questions the first question is is this.

Cartel or G related and the second one relates to I know there's a lot of legal marijuana grows when you say it's over marijuana was this like a major marijuana production or did somebody steal like can you elaborate on that a little um to the first question obviously it's an open investigation there's a lot going on um there's.

Certain things at the scene that show a level of violence that obviously raises some interesting questions for us but at this point in the investigation we can't comment on if we believe this is cartel related or not um and to the second question um elaborate a little more on on the marijuana was it from an illegal grow was marijuana is illegal in the.

State of California um Emily I'll grab that yeah so I'm gonna kind of give you a little bit of backup and talk a little bit about the region and what we've experienced out there in that region so and and one thing that hasn't been mentioned yet we need to remember that even looks like maybe the victims might.

Have been involved in some level of criminal activity in this we still need to always acknowledge the human perspective of this and there are true victims in this and as a result of what's going on in that area to answer your question in the last year our marijuana enforcement teams they served a total of 411 search warrant for.

Illegal marijuana grows and this is we're just talking a 365-day period um discovered 14 honey oil Labs recovered 655,000 marijuana plants 74,000 lbs of processed marijuana and 3 $70 million during that period of time our team served 11 search warrants in the immediate area of where the murders took place and they served approximately 40.

Search warrants to the west of that area that we call the Shadow Mountain area so this is an area known for illicit marijuana does that help you a little bit okay any other questions yes yes absolutely and this was related to an elic marijuana for all intense purposes it looks like elicit marijuana was the driving force behind.

These murders and that's all we really know at this point and I I think we need to acknowledge really you know why we're here and why are we talking about elicit marijuana and as you said this is legal in the state of California the reality is is Proposition 64 in the fine print took elicit marijuana and moved it from a felony to a misdemeanor and the.

Reality of this is is by allowing that we've un Unleashed a plague in this California and the plague is the black market of marijuana and certainly cartel activity and a number of victims that were out there and it's certainly my hope I'm seeing a number of legislators change Prop 47 and some things we're concerned about I hope they take the.

Same view of prop 64 and change this so they give law enforcement a fighting chance to put some teeth into this law and to take back and prevent a number of these homicides and other things that we see occurring if we don't fix that we're going to continue to do this I gave you stats for just the past year but prior to that thousands of marijuana.

Grows that we've taken out in partnership with the Bureau of cannabis control with partnership with our other state partners and federal Partners but right now folks we have gotten a much better control over this but it's it's interesting I just read an article that was produced back in 2020 in Cal matters and what the supporters were saying.

About prop 64 and it said it would bring the state's booming unregulated recreational marijuana under the rule of law and protect consumers in the environment and it's recognition of Decades of prohibition against aggressive enement enforcement in criminal laws that don't work that's false 100% our environment we prize our.

Environment in this state you go look at our deserts it's hoop house trash that's left over a very small water source that's available to the public has been tapped into look at that's this law through the lens of this case and all the statistics that I gave you and then please research the other counties across the state of.

California they have the exact same problems we need to prevent these types of Senseless murders from happening and we can do it we have it in our power we just need to make an adjustment the police are not going after people who are smoking marijuana recreationally it's elicit marijuana and everything that prop 64 was promised may possibly.

Occur if we could just simply make that adjustment and change the way that we handle elicit marijuana in this state Rob question is it fair I you don't want to say cartel related just yet is it very to call this organized crime Rob yes it is and look based on our training experience all of you hired experts that have also been talking about this case.

Until we got to this point of the press conference based on our training experience we believe a lot of these things are occurring that are maybe related to much bigger things going on the reality is is factually at this point of the case I can't tell you that but it certainly looks um like it has a lot of the the modeling of cartel cases.

And things of that nature another question the person called 911 is that the body that was found like 100 yard away or 200 yard away the one was found kind of away from theary scene Mike can you answer that please yes uh we can say at this point that that was I know there was another question.

Brian go ahead yeah did this appear to be a a scheduled Meetup and if so what was supposed to happen or or does this look more like an ambush Brian maybe all of the above based on evid we're looking at but again once the DA's office reviews this and it's certainly My Hope after we get through the preliminary um hearing and a.

Number of things we'll be able to give it a little bit more information to the group with specificity did the victims get off any shots that I'm not sure do we know Mike I I don't think we're comfortable speaking to that at this point in the investigation sure were these legal US citizens so a couple of the people that.

We identified in terms of the the victims may be um nationally from Honduras we're not able to we're working with the consulate right now to make that determination we're not sure a follow to Emily's question um so you serve search warrants in those multiple locations is it accurate to say that those search warrants were were um.

Issued at those rows where where were the Where were the suspects arrested um the suspects were arrested on a I would describe it as a compound it was close to uh a grow that was being formed but wasn't active yet um a lot of the the areas that we were dealing with were adjacent to marijuana grows but the search warrants themselves none of them.

Were hit at a grow site can you say any of those suspects had prior Criminal acity on um not at this point in the investigation we're still working through all that think it's just five I believe the five that we have are the five responsible for the crime I don't think there's anybody else who we.

Would say is responsible for the crime out there as best you can the you immediately got leads what what were these leads and what was the motivation from from whoever was calling you Den I I would love to be able to speak to that but really that's definitely part of the investigation that the da is going to.

Have to review and that's part of the the ultimate adjudication of this that we need and it's really we can't release that type of information right now sherff I have another thought question for you I I feel like correct me if I'm wrong I feel like all people but how many other murders were going on because of these illegal grows in your are so I.

I just speaking to sanino County now obviously anytime you have mass six people um that are murdered I mean that's shocking to your conscience let's be honest but I can tell you that since we've been investigating illegal marijuana grows a number of body dumps and things have been related to this across our County and to give you an.

Exact number I'm sorry I don't have that but it isn't an anomaly the anomaly here is the amount of people that were murdered of course and and this is a problem and this is a problem that's not really being talked about um could you say maybe murders have doubled you know how many more cases I.

Don't know how many more cases you guys are having of I don't even know if we'd be able to give you a a percentage of that I can just tell you that there have been a number of illegal illicit marijuana grows that have been found as a result of recovering a dead body in this County to include those cases when I talk about.

All the thousands of grows that we've taken down in the last two years um it's certainly a significant problem it's one that we've wrapped our heads around we figured that the best way to take this is really take the money out of it so you're talking about getting code enforcement involved attacking you know the property aspects of this who's in.

Caring control of the property and trying to take some of the profits out of this to really get control of it and we've we've we've taken thousands of grows down to hundreds in this County and it's certainly been significant a significant amount of impact on us as law enforcement and a significant impact on the taxpayers folks listen thank you.

Very much I'm going to go ahead and conclude the press conference we appreciate um all of your attention to this I appreciate your coverage of this and I apologize about you know Brian about some of the lack of information we're just not able to put out right now but I can guarantee you we got the five right people and we're going to make.

Sure this is a strong case and work very closely with the da to bring him to Justice thank you for your time they any Mur all right so you just watched there law enforcement officials in San Bernardino County California update all of us on this story we brought you uh late last week uh that six bodies were.

Found in this remote area of the California desert let's put their photos up right now uh you can see here on on this tweet there from Fox 11 in Los Angeles with a screenshot of the five individuals who were arrested there AR rest being made after those six bodies were found in that remote desert area near the San Bernardino County community.

Of elmerage uh so last week deputies found the bodies of six people at a remote dirt Crossroads in the Mojave Desert the deputies were responding to a request for a wellness check when they reached the area off Highway 39 5 outside El Mirage around 8:15 p.m. local time January the 23rd and found five of the bodies the sixth was found the.

Following morning so uh this apparently coming over a dispute when it comes to illicit marijuana grows there in the region of course the use of marijuana is legal in the state of California and you heard there from the chief and the detective there updating us on the this story uh that parts of this industry have gone.

Underground they referred to it as black market and that is what they uh kind of concluded was the whole reason the whole motive in these murders and now these five individuals before you arrested in connection with the deaths of these six people uh and law enforcement you heard there uh they're not looking for anyone else they believe these are the five.

Individuals responsible so if there are any more updates on this story including from our friends there at Fox 11 in Los Angeles we'll make sure to bring it to you

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