![]() Kenneth Whitacre was dug up from the earth, his throat and head hacked viciously and his upper body stabbed repeatedly.Ī search for more graves turned up more than anyone would have imagined and by early June the grand total had reached 25 bodies, all men who had been seen with or had gotten their jobs through Corona's labor contracting business. Even to s simple farmer it was obvious that this was more than likely a grave for someone or something and he called the police. When the man checked on the mysterious hole the next day, it was filled up. Workers often just up and left without notice.Ī fruit farmer in the area found a hole dug on his property on May 19. The disappearances never raised any concerns. He would simply select a new worker, one that was owed money usually, kill them, nad bury them. Most were men that were transient in nature and not likely to be missed. But he was also a schizophrenic and a sexual sadist who truned to murder in the spring of 1971.Ĭorona found workers in the steady flow of migrant laborers coming out of his home country just plain vagrants that were looking for a paycheck. He was respected and seemingly happlily married with children. Penniless native Mexican Juan Corona arrived in Yuba City, California, sometime in the 1950's and slowly built a more than respectable living as a labor contractor. Status: Sentenced to 25 consecutive terms of life imprisonment in January 1973 Method of murder: Shooting - Stabbing - Bludgeoning Victims profile: Men (transients and itinerant farmworkers) He was committed to an Auburn, California, mental hospital where he would undergo numerous shock treatments.īy the mid-1960s he had become a successful labor contractor, but complained to friends and acquaintances that he often still felt unwell.Ĭorona was divorced while in prison and information on survivors was not immediately available.AKA "The Machete Murderer" Classification: Serial killer ![]() Soon after he reported seeing the ghosts of those killed. 7, 1934, and followed his older brothers to the United States in 1950 to pick crops in California.Īccording to an academic study by Virginia’s Radford University that was titled “The Machete Murderer,” Corona originally crossed the border illegally, but after returning to Mexico some years later he came back in 1956 with a green card and remained as a legal resident.įamily members and others said he was traumatized by a deadly flood that struck Northern California in the mid-1950s. Juan Corona was born in the Mexican state of Jalisco on Feb. He testified at his second trial, denying he killed anyone, but prosecutors said he admitted the crimes at a 2011 parole hearing, adding that they were justified because the victims were “winos” who had trespassed.Īt his final parole hearing in 2016 Corona said he couldn’t recall killing anyone. The evidence presented at his trials was circumstantial and why Corona committed the killings has remained largely a mystery. He remained incarcerated while he went on trial again, this time with a new attorney who argued it was actually Corona’s late brother who, driven by rage, committed the murders.Ĭorona was again convicted on all 25 counts. An appeals court overturned Corona’s conviction in 1978, ruling he had received incompetent representation from his attorney who called no rebuttal witnesses to the state’s 119 prosecution witnesses.
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