Tulare County, Calif. detectives are investigating the shooting that killed six people on Jan. 16, 2023, AP
“A terrible slaughter.” This is how Sheriff Mike Boudreaux of Tulare County (central California) described the scene that members of his department found early Monday morning at a home in the San Joaquin Valley town of Goshen, a Latino-majority agricultural area. Among the victims were an elderly woman, a 16-year-old teenager and their 10-month-old baby. Judging by the excessive violence at the scene, county authorities believe a drug cartel was involved in the murder. “This is not the work of a small gang,” Boudreaux told the local press, without revealing which organization he suspects.
As of Tuesday morning, Tulare authorities had not arrested anyone linked to the murder. Security cameras recorded two men entering a property east of Highway 99, which crosses the state from north to south and connects the cities of Bakersfield and Fresno, among others. These subjects are considered responsible for the violent murder. In the next few hours, the sheriff’s office will question two women who survived the attack by hiding behind two trailers next to the property.
“I can’t imagine what a monster you have to be to do something like that,” Pina told the AP on Tuesday. Pina is the grandfather of Alissa Parraz, the murdered teenager. According to agents who responded to the call for help, Parraz died holding her son, Nycholas Nolan Parraz. The man told the press that the deceased were relatives of Parraz, who lived with several people on his father’s side. These were her uncle, her uncle’s cousin, her grandmother, and her great-grandmother. “My family is in shock,” Pina added.
The sheriff’s office has not released the names or characteristics of the suspects, who were believed to be professional hitmen because of the manner in which they behaved at the scene and the coolness they displayed. All the victims, including the ten-month-old baby, received a fatal blow. “This suggests they knew what they were doing and were comfortable with their decisions,” the sheriff told the Los Angeles Times.
Boudreaux believes this was a deliberate attack on the family. Though the investigation is ongoing, the sheriff is investigating the connection between the crime and a search warrant issued last week. The warrant to search for weapons, marijuana and methamphetamines was in the same country where the killings took place. The police then arrested one person, but the accused was released on bail. The investigations and DNA tests will determine whether one of those who died this Monday is also the arrested man.
Police received the first emergency call minutes before 3:40 a.m. on Monday. A neighbor told authorities there was an active gunman in the town of 3,000, which is 35 miles south of Fresno. The number of shots led him to believe a mass shooting was taking place. This sound was followed by the sound of a fleeing vehicle. What the uniformed officers arriving at the scene found was not much different. The bodies of two men lay on the sidewalk of the street. A third stood at the entrance of the house.
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Inside the house, a macabre scene awaited them. An elderly woman lay dead on her bed. The sheriff’s office believes she was killed in her sleep. Parraz and her son were found together in a ditch next to the house.
The multiple murders were deemed by civil authorities to be “the community’s worst nightmare”. Visalia and Goshen are just two of the many towns where thousands of farm workers make their living from the Californian fields of this central valley. The Los Angeles Times points out that one of the Zetas’ key capos, Jose María Guizar Valencia, was born in Tulare County, which is now mourning a bloody massacre.
Drug-related violence is nothing new in semirural California. Authorities have warned of the proliferation of several farms growing illegal marijuana. It serves a large secondary market in the state’s major cities, where many consumers are looking for cheaper weed that doesn’t include the heavy taxes imposed by legalization in 2018. This has created a challenge for the districts, who are not well aware of the full extent of the conflict, as farmers and landowners do not go before the authorities to denounce the facts because it is an illegal activity.
In September 2020, a massacre at a ranch north of San Diego claimed seven lives. The bodies of several drug harvest workers were found there. All of the dead were migrants from Laos. Almost half a ton of marijuana was found there.
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