Family to Share Anthony Martinez Story at Victims' Rights Week Vigil

RIVERSIDE COUNTY, CA - Community members from throughout Riverside County will have an opportunity next month to pay their respects and share their memories of anyone whose lives were taken by acts of violence. The Riverside County District Attorney's office is hosting a series of candlelight vigils during the first week of April, which is National Victims' Rights Week.

Locally, three public memorials are planned, all beginning at 7 p.m. Events are set for Palm Desert, Temecula and Riverside.

The first is on April 4 at the Civic Center Park amphitheater, 43-900 San Pablo Ave. in Palm Desert. Diana Reed will be the keynote speaker. Her son, 10-year-old Anthony Martinez, was sexually assaulted and fatally beaten by Joseph Edward Duncan on April 4, 1997. Duncan lured the boy away from his family residence in Beaumont on the pretext of helping him search for a lost cat. Anthony's remains were discovered two weeks later near a deserted road on the outskirts of Indio. The case received national attention.

Duncan was ultimately sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for killing the boy and was also sentenced to death for torturing and murdering another boy in Idaho.

The second candlelight vigil is slated for April 5 at Temecula City Hall, 41000 Main St. Diane Bainbridge will the keynote speaker, recalling the life of her daughter, 23-year-old Allison Jacobs, and the events that led to her death at the hands of an ex-boyfriend, who also gunned down a Riverside County sheriff's deputy, Kent Hintergardt, when he arrived to investigate what was happening at the Temecula apartment complex in May 1993.

The perpetrator committed suicide in his car less than an hour later.

The final vigil will be held on April 6, beginning with a brief ceremony outside the Riverside Historic Courthouse, 4050 Main St., from which attendees will walk and gather at the Victims' Memorial Courtyard, adjacent to the D.A.'s headquarters at 3960 Orange St.

Patty Cardenas, a victim advocate for the D.A.'s office, will speak at the service, detailing the circumstances and aftermath of her 20-year-old brother Alex Cardenas' slaying by gang members in 1992 in Orange County.

District Attorney Mike Hestrin and members of his staff will attend each gathering.

– City News Service contributed to this report. Image via Riverside County District Attorney's