Five people were arrested on Sunday, Jan. 28, who San Bernardino County Sheriff Shannon Dicus said gunned down six people five days earlier during a scheduled meet-up for a marijuana deal in a remote area of the desert northwest of Victorville that is known for large, clandestine pot farms.
Dicus, at a Monday afternoon news conference at sheriff’s headquarters in San Bernardino, said investigators began receiving tips immediately after the slayings near the community of El Mirage that led to the arrests. He declined to elaborate.
“I can guarantee you we got the five right people,” Dicus said. “It looks like illicit marijuana was the driving force behind these murders.”
The suspects were arrested as investigators carried out search warrants in Apple Valley, Adelanto and a portion of Piñon Hills that is in Los Angeles County. Sgt. Michael Warrick said they were taken into custody at a compound close to what authorities believe was going to be a marijuana grow operation.
All five were booked on suspicion of murder and are being held without bail.
They were identified as brothers Toniel Baez-Duarte, 34, and Mateo Baez-Duarte, 24, of Apple Valley; brothers Jose Nicolas Hernandez-Sarabia, 33 and Jose Gregorio Hernandez-Sarabia, 34, of Adelanto; and Jose Manuel Burgos Parra, 26, of Adelanto.
A 911 call from a Spanish-speaking man who said he had been shot but didn’t know his location drew law enforcement to the remote crime scene about 4 miles from Highway 395 near Shadow Mountain Road, the sheriff said. Dispatchers used cell phone data to locate the victims, the sheriff added.
All six suffered fatal gunshots, while four were also set ablaze by their attackers. One victim was found inside a bullet-riddled SUV. The man who called 911 walked a short distance away from the shooting scene before he died.
Four of the victims were identified as Baldemar Mondragon-Albarran, 34, of Adelanto; Franklin Noel Bonilla, 22, and Kevin Dariel Bonilla, 25, of Hesperia; and a 45-year-old man whose identity they are holding off on releasing until they reach his next of kin. The two other victims have not yet been identified, Dicus said. Franklin Bonilla was identified as the 911 caller.
“Even though it looks like the victims might have been involved in some level of criminal activity, you need to acknowledge the human perspective of this, and they are true victims,” Dicus said.
Dicus said the area of the crime is known for illicit marijuana. The department served 11 search warrants close by in 2023 and 40 just to the west in the Shadow Mountain area, he said.
The Sheriff’s Department previously released almost no information until Monday, even declining to confirm what could be seen in television news helicopter videos: the bullet holes in a vehicle and bodies that were burned. An examination of the scene after investigators departed revealed charred vehicle glass and blood soaked into the dirt.
The dearth of information prompted speculation that the killings were the work of Mexican drug cartels or a drug deal gone badly wrong. But a Cal Poly Pomona criminologist said that because the Sheriff’s Department said no federal authorities were assisting in the investigation, he doubted cartels were involved.
Dicus said it isn’t clear yet whether the killings were related to cartels, although he did acknowledge that organized crime was involved.
There are no homes near the crime scene, making it an area where illegal activity would be difficult to detect, especially at night. But the area is not without traffic. A post at the intersection of two dirt roads where the shooting happened marks one road as El Mirage off-highway vehicle trail 4652.
The county’s vast desert is a popular location for people who maintain marijuana grows involving thousands of plants and sophisticated irrigation systems. Desert residents have reported encounters with armed people guarding these farms, and other residents have said the illegal growers also steal water.
To counter this, the Sheriff’s Department for a time ran Operation Hammer Strike, whose deputies uprooted thousands of plants and made arrests. The department now has two teams dedicated to the eradication of the growing of marijuana that Dicus said is sold on the black market.