Man Gets 25 Years to Life in Cornfield Killing

By City News Service

A former Cardenas market worker was sentenced Friday to 25 years to life behind bars for killing a 19-year-old Indio woman and leaving her body to rot in an isolated Coachella cornfield.

Raymundo Garcia Vasquez, 29, was convicted last month of first-degree murder in the death of Karina Sepulveda, who went missing on April 28, 2011.

According to the prosecution, Vasquez killed Sepulveda because he was romantically obsessed with her and frustrated that the victim failed to follow through on plans to marry him so he could gain legal immigration status.

Four members of Sepulveda’s family, each speaking through sobs, made victim-impact statements with varying levels of vitriol toward the defendant.

“This person, if you can even call him that, not only killed my little sister, he killed my whole family,” said Carmina Sepulveda.

The victim’s father, Joseph, said he has a son of his own in prison and that he hoped to visit Vasquez.

“I want to talk to him about things that will be helpful to him and helpful to me,” he said in Spanish. “I don’t feel hate.”

Carmen Gonzalez Sepulveda said that she knew immediately that Vasquez had killed her daughter and that she and her family remain haunted by the loss.

“I still hear her screams,” she said through an interpreter. “Raymundo broke my heart.”

She then asked the defendant to turn his life around and repent.

“I want to tell Raymundo that I forgive him and God forgives him,” the mother said. “I am here to give him that message.”

After the victim’s family members spoke, Vasquez made his own statement in which he expressed his condolences to hr family but maintained his innocence.

“From the moment I learned she had passed away, I just wanted to help them,” he said in Spanish, adding that he lost his best friend when he was 14 and understood what it’s like to lose someone.

“I would just like to ask them to move on,” he said.

One of Sepulveda’s relatives burst into tears and stormed out of the courtroom, while yelling “sit down” in Spanish.

Vasquez and Sepulveda had been friends for a few years before her death. Vasquez would often give the victim money and gifts and was clearly enamored with her, according to trial testimony. Witnesses said Sepulveda did not share the same romantic feelings but continued to accept the money and gifts.

The two were together on the night of her disappearance and she posted a photo on Facebook at 9:48 p.m. of her hand holding several $100 bills like a fan.

A prolific cellphone user, Sepulveda sent a final, innocuous communication at 9:59 p.m., then all communications ceased. She was reported missing when she failed to show up for work at an Indio insurance office the next morning.

Her body was discovered five days later in a cornfield at Fillmore Street and 50th Avenue but was so badly decomposed that medical examiners couldn’t determine how she died.

A few days after she went missing, Vasquez asked his bosses at Cardenas on Highway 111 in Indio for three weeks of vacation, saying he wanted to visit his family in Mexico, and requested that he be transferred to a store in Las Vegas after his return.

Vasquez left for Mexico on May 4, the same day that Sepulveda’s body was discovered. Vasquez returned to the U.S. two years later after negotiating his surrender at the Calexico border crossing.

Prosecutors speculated Sepulveda was the victim of strangulation, asphyxiation or a fatal beating. An insect expert testified that the body was infested with maggots, indicating that Sepulveda had been dead at least 5 1/2 days when her remains were found.

During his first detailed police interview, Vasquez told a detective that Sepulveda asked him to drive to the cornfield after a visit to a Carl’s Jr. restaurant in Indio. He said the two engaged in a sex act, after which she demanded money.

The defendant told police the two argued when he refused, and she got out of the car. Vasquez said he tried to follow her, but she threatened to call police, so he left.

During a later police interview, Vasquez told investigators that he and Sepulveda were beaten up in an attempted carjacking at the cornfield, and that he left Sepulveda injured but alive, believing she had set him up for the attack. Vasquez’s lawyer told jurors that story was a lie, conjured in a desperate effort to portray himself as a crime victim and gain re-entry to the U.S.