Man found guilty of Moreno Valley teen’s murder
UPDATE 1:45 PM : Jesse Torres has been found guilty of first-degree murder for the killing of Norma Lopez.
Torres has also been found guilty of kidnapping. The trial will now enter the penalty phase. The jury will return to hear evidence Wednesday at 1:30 p.m.
Torres could have faced the death penalty depending on the penalty phase of the trial. However, a moratorium has been placed on the death penalty in the state by an executive order signed by Governor Gavin Newsom Wednesday.
In the District Attorney’s Office’s release on the verdict, it was stated that DA Mike Hestrin will seek the death penalty in this case.
{“url”:”https://twitter.com/RivCoDA/status/1105933221685014537″,”author_name”:”Riverside County DA’s Office”,”author_url”:”https://twitter.com/RivCoDA”,”html”:”&#lt;blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”&#gt;&#lt;p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”&#gt;Jury finds Torres guilty of first-degree murder for killing 17-year-old Norma Lopez in 2010. They also found the special circumstance true. The case will go to penalty phase now on this death penalty case.&#lt;/p&#gt;– Riverside County DA’s Office (@RivCoDA) &#lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/RivCoDA/status/1105933221685014537?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”&#gt;March 13, 2019&#lt;/a&#gt;&#lt;/blockquote&#gt;n&#lt;script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″&#gt;&#lt;/script&#gt;n”,”width”:550,”height”:null,”type”:”rich”,”cache_age”:”3153600000″,”provider_name”:”Twitter”,”provider_url”:”https://twitter.com”,”version”:”1.0″}
DA Hestrin said that the governor’s decision will not affect their decision to seek the death penalty in this case.
“The victim, 17-year-old Norma Lopez, was kidnapped on July 15, 2010, as she walked from summer school at Valley View High School in Moreno Valley to a friend’s house. Five days later, her body was found in a dirt field about three miles away,” read the DA’s release. “Defendant Jesse Perez Torres was later identified as the suspect and was charged in October 2011 by our office with Norma’s murder.”
