Kriti Mehrotra
In the early hours of December 28, 1999, Elena Castro Najera and 42-year-old Jose Najera Sr. were heinously killed in their suburban Garden Grove, California, home. They were reportedly hard-working individuals who never hesitated to help those in need, which is why their untimely demise left their entire Orange County community shaken to the very core. However, it wasn’t until around a decade later that a re-review of the case ultimately brought the entire truth to light, resulting in a total of two arrests, trials, convictions, and sentences.
Elena and Jose Najera Were Stabbed Multiple Times Each
Elena and Jose Najera had built a good, stable life for themselves by the late 1990s. According to records, they were both proud working parents – she was a seamstress, while he worked in construction – who ensured that their only son attended a private school for a better future. They were deeply devoted to their faith, too, which had taught them to be kind, respectful, and to embrace their happy reality at every step of the way, in the 12400 block of Merrill Street.
However, everything changed at roughly 4:30 am on December 28, 1999, when 46-year-old Elena and Jose’s 19-year-old son, Jose Jr., called 911 in a seeming panic to report that he had found them dead. The Mater Dei graduate turned University of Southern California applicant asserted he had just returned home from a night out at a friend’s place, only to find both his parents lying dead on the floor. Unfortunately, by the time officials arrived at the scene minutes later, they were well beyond resuscitation — their autopsy reports revealed they had been stabbed more than 20 times each.
Elena and Jose Najera Were Victims of a Financially Motivated Crime
As per records, the initial assumption at the bloody scene was that the incident could be a heinous murder-suicide, but it was quickly dismissed as the nature of Elena and Jose’s wounds came to light. They had both been stabbed multiple times and appeared to have defensive injuries, plus the hypothesis of double homicide was soon also backed by forensic testing as well as investigations. Even neighbors reportedly told officials that the family seemed idyllic, with one adding that, although she hadn’t seen anything suspicious, she had heard dogs barking around midnight.
Detectives found no signs of forced entry or the murder weapon anywhere nearby, but an open window as well as a ski mask seemingly left behind by the perpetrator gave them ample evidence. After all, in the early 2000s itself, they arrested one of Jose Jr.’s closest friends, Gerald Johnson, on two counts of first-degree murder after his hair and saliva were found on the black ski mask. The fact that Elena and Jose’s 19-year-old son was at his house on the fateful evening led officials to believe he had left his party while it was in full swing to commit the crime for their money.
As a result, Gerald was convicted of two counts of special circumstances murder with a sentencing enhancement for multiple murders on March 15, 2002, for which he was sentenced to life in prison. It seemed like the case was closed here at first, but investigators decided to revisit it nearly a decade later in 2007, leading to the sudden arrest of the victims’ only son, Jose Alonso Najera Jr., too. Prosecutors argued, and the jury ultimately agreed, that he had actually orchestrated his parents’ murder for their life savings, which they had withdrawn from their bank accounts a month prior in anticipation of the Y2K bug.
While Jose Najera Jr. is Serving a Life Sentence, Gerald Johnson Died From Suicide
According to records, Elena and Jose Sr. had decided to place their money in a safety deposit box at some point in November 1999, just for their son to almost immediately start dipping into it. According to trial testimony, he allegedly paid for strippers and bought himself Christmas presents before giving them to his cousins to “gift” back to him on the holiday so that he would get precisely what he wanted. Per court records, he allegedly also lost $18,000 in a drug deal gone wrong, which his parents found out about and chose to punish him by having him pay it all back in kind by working for his father for free.
Detectives further discovered that following the double homicide, Jose Jr. spent his parents’ money so quickly that he was nearly broke by September 2000, which resulted in non-payment of the mortgage. The Najera family’s Garden Grove home subsequently went into bank foreclosure, forcing the then-young man to move into an apartment; he remained in Orange County throughout. In 2008, Jose Jr. was charged with his parents’ murder. It’s the same year Gerald died by suicide after all his appeals had been dismissed.
As per records, Gerald was the one whose statements led officials to reopen Elena and Jose Sr.’s case, especially with him asserting Jose Jr. had left the window open for him on purpose. With all this, following a trial, a jury found Jose Jr. guilty of first-degree murder for his father and second-degree murder for his mother, with the special circumstances for murder for financial gain and multiple murders, on June 1, 2010. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole two months later, so today, at the age of 45, he remains incarcerated at the California Health Care Facility in Stockton, California.
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