By Monica Vaughan
Appeal-Democrat
MARYSVILLE, Calif. — Juan Vallejo Corona, convicted of murdering 25 migrant farmworkers in Sutter County orchards 45 years ago, will come before a state parole board Wednesday.
District Attorney Amanda Hopper plans to argue against his release in a 10:30 a.m. hearing at Corcoran State Prison in the San Joaquin Valley, where the 82-year-old — now suffering from dementia — is an inmate.
Corona was found guilty by a jury of 25 counts of murder — once in 1973 and again, following a retrial, in 1982. He was sentenced to 25 concurrent life terms.
He confessed in his last parole hearing in 2011 and raised details about other possible killings never discovered. Bodies found in gravesites on J.L. Sullivan Ranch and neighboring orchards north of Yuba City and along the banks of the Feather River in 1971 showed wounds from a knife or machete.
Many had stab wounds, chop wounds or slash wounds. Some injuries were inflicted with such force that they severed the portions of the victims’ skull, Assistant District Attorney Jana McClung said at the hearing.
Corona said he killed another with a gun he had purchased in Reno, Nev.
“Took about a year to do all those killings,” he said, according to a transcript of the hearing.
According to a summary of psychological exam conducted before the hearing, Corona — a labor contractor at the time of the killings — said he killed the men because they were “winos” and were trespassing on his boss’ property.
Four of his victims were never identified.
Corona has been diagnosed with schizophrenia, psychotic disorder, depression, delusional disorder and dementia, according to a parole board commissioner’s testimony in 2011.
Signs of mental illness were first documented after his involvement in recovering bodies after the deadly Feather River flooding in 1955. Psychological records summarized in the 2011 parole hearing indicate the experience may have shocked and traumatized him, causing a nervous breakdown that resulted in his hospitalization.
His plans, if he is released on parole, have not yet been released. During the last hearing, he indicated he would live with his brother in Arizona.
Commissioners explained to him he would have to be approved to leave the state and that he has an immigration hold, which could mean he would go back to Mexico, where he was born.