Megan Barroso's killer studied his victims
Jojoz
Jojoz
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http://www.latimes.com/editions/ventura/la-000088197nov04.story?coll=la%2Ded
itions%2Dventura
VENTURA COUNTY
A Chilling Picture of Accused Killer
Crime: Vincent Sanchez studied his alleged victims, according to grand jury
transcripts.
By CATHERINE SAILLANT and STEVE CHAWKINS, TIMES STAFF WRITERS
Accused rapist and killer Vincent Sanchez methodically studied his victims
before he allegedly attacked them. But he became increasingly violent and
reckless as his personal life fell apart and the attacks increased.
That picture of Sanchez emerges in 1,145 pages of Ventura County Grand Jury
testimony that tells a chilling story of an alleged crime spree that
terrified Simi Valley residents for five years and escalated to the slaying
of 20-year-old Moorpark College student Megan Barroso.
According to the transcripts, Sanchez, 31, made the effort to learn the
names of some of his alleged victims. He allegedly videotaped one
15-year-old through her bedroom window as she changed into pajamas before
attacking her. He often threatened his victims by mentioning a family
member, the transcripts state.
"Do you want me to kill your grandmother?" he told one woman as he covered
her mouth to stifle her screams, the testimony states.
Sanchez's alleged five-year hunt for victims across Simi Valley and the
western San Fernando Valley was revealed in more detail last week when the
grand jury testimony finally became public.
Prosecutors say the unemployed carpenter targeted 15 women beginning in
September 1996 and ending with the kidnap and rape of a Woodland Hills woman
July 9. That was five days after he allegedly gunned down Barroso as she
drove home from a Fourth of July party.
Sanchez, arrested in late July, faces trial on multiple sexual-assault
charges and a first-degree murder count that could bring him the death
penalty.
He has pleaded guilty to some of the assaults and his attorney has suggested
he may admit to killing Barroso. But defense lawyer Neil Quinn has argued
that Sanchez did not attempt to rape Barroso and thus should not face a
possible death sentence in the case.
The transcripts show a brazen Sanchez, who allegedly broke into homes in the
middle of the night by prying off window screens, breaking windows or
slipping through sliding-glass doors.
Startled by a noise at 4 a.m., one woman, according to the transcripts,
awoke to see a knife blade poking through her bedroom door jamb, working its
way up toward her hook-and-eye lock. As she frantically tried to call 911, a
man in a ski mask rushed in, covered her mouth and held the blade to her
throat.
He allegedly marched her, crouching, to a hallway window and tried to pull
her through. But he fled when the woman screamed and her mother rushed to
her aid.
Authorities say a pair of the woman's turquoise panties was later found
among Sanchez's possessions. According to the transcripts, he grabbed
"trophies" such as underwear, jewelry and cameras from many of the crime
scenes.
Sanchez allegedly took sexually explicit pictures of some of the women,
their faces shrouded by a hood. A man's shadowy figure, clad in a black ski
mask and leather gloves, appears on some videotapes shot during the
assaults.
"Make it sound good," the man ordered one of the victims.
The transcripts chronicle desperate--and sometimes effective--resistance
from a number of Sanchez's alleged victims, who testified before the grand
jury between Aug. 16 and Sept. 4.
One said she had flailed at her attacker as he allegedly straddled her,
reaching under his ski mask to scratch him with her fingernails.
"I screamed and screamed very loud and he proceeded to try to exit my
bedroom," the victim told the grand jury. "I saw he was fumbling with the
doorknob, and I decided I wasn't gonna let him just walk out of the house. I
proceeded to jump onto him, to jump onto his back and try to find out who he
was."
One woman who had taken self-defense training became combative with her
attacker. As she lay on her bed, she pulled her legs up and kicked her
attacker's chest so hard that he fell back into a closet. They struggled. He
ran down a hall and fled.
Sanchez allegedly surprised one victim by tackling her in the hallway of her
home. She kicked him and bit his finger, but he beat her with his fists,
slammed her face with an empty beer bottle and choked her until she passed
out, according to the transcripts.
Regaining consciousness, she grabbed a family photograph in an oak frame.
"I just hit him on top of the head as hard as I could, and he stuttered and
stumbled," the woman told jurors.
When her attacker saw her brandishing a metal lamp, he capitulated.
"OK, OK, you win," he said. "I just have to find my mask."
After the attacks, according to the transcripts, Sanchez would sometimes try
to soothe his victims, cuddling and whispering encouragement.
"You seem like a very good girl," the transcripts state he told one
frightened woman he had allegedly taken from Topanga Canyon Boulevard in the
San Fernando Valley and allegedly raped in his Simi Valley home. "You seem
very pure. I can't believe I picked up someone as pretty as you."
Sanchez was "obsessed" with keeping his identity secret, prosecutor Lela
Henke-Dobroth told jurors.
As the attacker raped the women, he kept their heads under a pillow. On
several occasions he kidnapped his victims, driving them to his home or in
one case to a dirt trail in the hills of Simi Valley. In those instances, he
covered their heads with a sweatshirt.
Because he didn't have sexual intercourse with all his victims, transcripts
state, Sanchez allegedly tried to minimize his attacks in a phone
conversation from the Ventura County Jail to his former girlfriend.
"I didn't rape all of 'em," the transcripts state. "I just raped five or six
of 'em."
The man who became known as the Simi Valley rapist was one of eight children
raised by Margaret and Mariano Sanchez, say acquaintances interviewed by The
Times earlier this year.
He Served Time for Child Abuse
Mariano Sanchez worked in the construction business and both parents
appeared to be strict but loving with the children, according to
acquaintances.
But Vincent Sanchez had problems, dropping out of his Simi Valley high
school. At 21, he moved to Lancaster and began a stormy relationship with a
17-year-old woman who had a child with another man.
They fought about the 1-year-old girl, court documents show, and in March
1992 both were charged with child abuse when the baby was rushed to Palmdale
Hospital struggling to breathe. Sanchez served less than two years in prison
for the offense.
He moved back to Simi Valley after his release and began working in the
construction business. In late 1995, Sanchez was injured in a crane accident
and was awarded a sizable workers' compensation settlement.
After that, he never seemed to work much, Sanchez's roommates told the grand
jury. During this time, Sanchez began dating Ojai resident Luz LaFarga. It
is also the period when the rapes began.
His relationship with LaFarga, who was about 10 years older and had four
children, was volatile, according to testimony.
Sanchez was jealous and obsessive with her, LaFarga said, sometimes driving
to her home unannounced just to make sure she was there. Things deteriorated
last winter, she said. Sanchez had broken into LaFarga's home once late at
night, she said, and was peeping through windows on other occasions.
One night in December, LaFarga told grand jurors, Sanchez wielded a sword
and fled before police arrived. LaFarga went to court to obtain a
restraining order against Sanchez. The spiraling threats, and an apparent
suicide note found by Sanchez's half-brother, Anthony Lopez, prompted his
family to seek help.
In January, Lopez took Sanchez to Ventura County Medical Center, where he
was treated for depression for 18 days, Lopez testified. Lopez, a career
Marine Corps sergeant, later arranged a meeting between Sanchez and LaFarga
in an effort to settle their differences.
While the couple was talking, Lopez searched his brother's vehicle and found
a black ski mask, gloves, handcuffs, ammunition--and a bag of female
garments, Lopez told the grand jury. Lopez confronted Sanchez and demanded
to know whether he also had a firearm. Sanchez reluctantly took him to a
nearby trash dumpster, where he had stashed a shotgun, Lopez testified.
Lopez testified he thought the items were related to Sanchez's threats
against Luz, so didn't question his brother on why he had them.
Sanchez seemed to settle down for a few months, and during this time the
attacks had stopped. But after five sexual assaults were reported in 2000,
there were none through the first six months of this year.
But Sanchez never stopped calling LaFarga, and in June she finally made it
clear that things were over between them. Sanchez went into a tailspin,
neighbor George Fernandez said.
Sanchez Was Depressed Over Failed Relationship
One night, Fernandez and Sanchez shared several beers while sitting on the
lawn outside Sanchez's house, the neighbor testified. Sanchez began crying,
telling Fernandez how he had recently held his roommate's AK-47 assault
rifle to his mouth as he contemplated suicide.
He was depressed over his failed relationship with LaFarga, Fernandez said,
and over something he could not tell his friend of six years about.
"He started crying, telling me that he almost killed himself and that he
needed to get off the streets because he needed to go to jail," Fernandez
testified.
When Fernandez pressed for details, believing Sanchez was talking about his
threats against LaFarga, Sanchez was again vague.
"He said that he's done stuff that I wouldn't believe--if I found out then I
would call the police on him," Fernandez said.
On July 4, Sanchez was drinking beers at home again, chatting with neighbors
and his half-brother, Lopez. He did not seem unduly stressed, say neighbors
who watched fireworks with him.
In the early morning, Sanchez apparently slipped into the night driving a
dark-green Ford Ranger, say witnesses who noticed the vehicle was gone.
Across town in Newbury Park, Megan Barroso was also enjoying the holiday.
She had spent the evening at a barbecue and later, watching fireworks at
Silver Strand beach, her best friend, Lindsay Gross, told the grand jury.
One of Barroso's friends had brought a container of red glitter and
playfully tossed some on Barroso's head. At 2:45 a.m., Barroso kissed
Lindsay goodbye and headed toward her Moorpark home.
She never made it. Prosecutors say Sanchez fired the AK-47 he had allegedly
stolen from his roommate and that one of the bullets ripped through
Barroso's car and into her abdomen.
County Medical Examiner Ronald O'Halloran testified Barroso probably did not
die immediately, instead bleeding internally for minutes or even hours.
Forensic scientists later found evidence of blood and specks of red glitter
in the truck that Sanchez was driving that night. Roommates said Sanchez
appeared to have scratches on his face the next day and that he became very
withdrawn, only coming out of his room at night.
Sanchez was arrested on suspicion of burglarizing a neighbor's home. While
in custody, authorities said, Sanchez called one of his roommates and asked
him to get rid of a bag he had placed in a recycling bin outside their
Woodrow Avenue home.
Inside the bag, the roommate found photographs and videos of naked women
bound and gagged, authorities said. Women's underwear and jewelry also were
found in the bag. A roommate immediately called 911.
Barroso's body was found Aug. 4 at the bottom of a 50-foot ravine in Black
Canyon, just outside Simi Valley city limits. It was clad in a T-shirt and
panties, with twine near the neck and waist, forensic officials said.
O'Halloran testified he was unable to examine for sexual assault because the
body was badly decomposed.
Henke-Dobroth told grand jurors that Sanchez had intended to kidnap and rape
Barroso and decided to kill her because she could identify him.
"Unlike the other victims, she was the only one who would have been able to
describe his physical characteristics, see his face and describe the pickup
truck that he was driving," Henke-Dobroth told grand jurors. "Thus, he
carried out the threat he had made to the others and Megan did not survive
the attack."
satujinn
killer. Glad they stopped him before more bodies started pilling up.
"Jojoz" <jojozsd@hotmail.[SPAMBLOC]com> wrote in message news:<OByF7.3451$Sx.12...@news1.elcjn1.sdca.home.com>...
DedNdogYrs
to see a knife blade poking through her bedroom door jamb, working its
way up toward her hook-and-eye lock. As she frantically tried to call 911, a
man in a ski mask rushed in, covered her mouth and held the blade to her
throat.>
A gun in that woman's bedroom would have put a stop to this guy for good.
Dogs & children first.
satujinn
Noe that's the truth.
www.manuel...@gmail.com
shaun walker
Greg Carr
Vincent Sanchez: Convicted in 2003 of shooting Moorpark College student Megan Barroso, 20, kidnapping her from her car, attempting to rape her, then leaving her to die in 2001. https://www.vcstar.com/story/news/local/2019/03/13/convicted-death-row-inmates-ventura-county-california-governer-gavin-newsrom/3151041002/ He was given the death penalty rightly.
Vincent Sanchez (born 1973): the "Simi Valley Rapist". Serial rapist convicted of 75 counts including a first degree murder charge, felony kidnapping, burglary, rape, and other sex offense charges against numerous victims. Sentenced to death in 2003.[106] https://www.wikiwand.com/en/San_Quentin_State_Prison
Vincent Sanchez
In 2003, Vincent Sanchez was convicted of kidnapping, attempting to sexually assault, and killing 20-year-old Megan Barroso. The man nicknamed the “Simi Valley Rapist” was ultimately convicted of 75 counts, including a variety of sex offense charges related to attacks on at least 14 women https://popculturecrime.medium.com/a-look-at-ventura-countys-death-sentences-553a2f6780eb
Execute him already Gov. Newsome and save California taxpayers money.
