5 Years Later, Alleged Killer of MoVal Girl Still Awaits Trial

By City News Service

Tuesday marks the fifth anniversary of the abduction- murder of Norma Lopez, a Moreno Valley high school student whose disappearance devastated a community and whose case went cold for more than a year before her alleged killer was identified and arrested.

“It’s one of the most emotional cases I’ve handled,” former Supervising Deputy District Attorney Mike Soccio told City News Service. “This is a young lady who one minute was walking home from school, and a minute later, it was all over. There was such a mystery as to who did it and why.”

Soccio, who was assigned to the case until his retirement from the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office in January, said he’s continuing to lend a hand with trial preparation -- from a distance -- and will remain involved until the matter is resolved.

“It’s past time for a jury to hear this,” the veteran prosecutor said.

READ MORE:

• L.B. Man Arrested on Suspicion of Killing Norma Lopez, 17
• Prosecutors Filing Charges Against L.B. Man in MoVal Murder of Norma Lopez
• Man Accused of Murdering Moreno Valley Teen Norma Lopez to Stand Trial

Norma was taken on the morning of July 15, 2010. The 17-year-old had attended a summer class at Valley View High School and was walking to a house in the 27300 block of Cottonwood Avenue to meet her younger sister and friends but never made it. When she failed to arrive by noon, her sister, boyfriend and others went to search for her along a footpath she and other students used to cut across a field near Quail Creek Drive.

One of the teenager’s earrings, her purse and a folder were found in the field. Sheriff’s deputies were called to the scene and initiated a search, first going to places familiar to the teen, including her family home, the school and nearby retail outlets, eventually expanding the search to areas throughout the city and beyond.

When no clues regarding Norma’s whereabouts turned up after two days, and the weekend began, members of the community and Norma’s schoolmates formed their own search parties, distributing fliers bearing her picture and description.

Authorities also focused on what was described as a green SUV seen speeding away from the area about the same time Norma disappeared, asking anyone with information about the vehicle to come forward.

Five days later, only hours after the Moreno Valley City Council announced a $35,000 reward for information leading to her safe return, Norma’s remains were discovered under brush at the edge of a property on sparsely populated Theodore Street in east Moreno Valley, roughly 2 1/2 miles from where she was snatched. Though there was no evidence of a sexual assault, Norma’s shirt and bra were missing.

“When you see the pictures of her dead, it’s very chilling,” Soccio said. “It brings a lot of sadness, especially after you learn about her, who she was, what she was like.”

In the ensuing months, detectives followed up on more than 2,000 potential leads, questioning hundreds of people, including a former teacher’s aide identified as a person of interest but who was ultimately cleared. The investigation stalled until September 2011, when physical evidence lifted from Norma’s earring produced a hit in the state’s Combined DNA Index System, better known as CODIS, where DNA samples of criminal offenders is archived.

Less than a month later, then-36-year-old Jesse Perez Torres was arrested and charged with Norma’s murder.

At the time of the girl’s slaying, Torres lived around the corner from the high school, and investigators theorize he may have been watching her on occasions when she left the campus to walk home or to her friend’s house.

The defendant owned a green Nissan SUV while in Moreno Valley. He left the city and sold the vehicle less than two weeks after Norma’s death, relocating to Long Beach, according to prosecutors. Torres has a prior conviction for domestic violence.

Evidence presented during the defendant’s 2013 preliminary hearing showed that on the day of the abduction, Norma was captured on a home security surveillance camera walking along Quail Creek Drive, and less than 30 seconds later, a green Nissan Xterra is seen heading in the same direction. About five minutes after the vehicle’s first appearance, it goes racing by in the opposite direction, then abruptly reverses course and goes back the way it came.

Soccio said the DNA evidence is the linchpin, narrowing down the list of possible donors of the incriminating evidence to only two-dozen -- with Torres being the strongest candidate.

“I know we say this too much, but there’s a lot of circumstantial evidence,” the prosecutor told City News Service. “A lot of scientific evidence, too. That has consumed a lot of time, testing and re-testing. The investigative team was really effective. They generated a lot of information. It created probably the most amount of work I’ve ever handled.”

Soccio said the case has been ready to go to trial from the prosecution’s perspective for more than a year. A major challenge has been finding Torres appropriate defense counsel. His first public defender was appointed to a judgeship, after which his next public defender declared a conflict in representation, leading to yet a third defense team.

“The judge has said she’s going to hold his lawyers to a timetable that’s reasonable,” Soccio said. “I believe the trial will happen in the fall. The community is ready to have this finished. And for the sake of the family, I hope it ends. They have suffered. When a young girl is kidnapped and killed, the pain is severe.”

If convicted, Torres will face the death penalty.

He’s slated to appear for a trial-setting conference on July 24 at the Riverside Hall of Justice.