(Woodland, CA) District Attorney Jeff Reisig announced that on Monday, March 3, 2014, Yolo County Superior Court Judge Stephen L. Mock sentenced Juan Antonio Gonzales, 29 of Sacramento, to a term of life without the possibility of parole for the June 18, 2006, murder of Alfonso Prado.
On June 18, 2006, Alfonso Prado, a janitor at Ortega’s West bar in West Sacramento, was cleaning the bar when the defendant entered the bar and robbed Mr. Prado of his belongings. During the robbery Mr. Prado suffered a gunshot wound to the chest which killed him. Three days later, the Sacramento Police Department recovered a hand gun and entered identifying information into the National Ballistics Network. After another two years passed, a “cold hit” established that this gun, which was last in the possession of an associate of defendant Gonzales, was the weapon used to kill Mr. Prado. A year later, the Department of Justice Criminalistics Laboratory, received a cold hit identification establishing that a small amount of blood found at the scene matched DNA from defendant Gonzales that was in the national DNA database (CODIS).
At the sentencing hearing Mr. Prado’s mother and two sisters testified about the effects that this crime has had on their lives as well as the lives of their children. Assistant Chief Deputy District Attorney Michael J. Cabral stated that the lives of these families were shattered by a cold blooded killing on Father’s Day for a few hundred dollars in gold.
For more information, please contact Assistant Chief Deputy District Attorney Michael Cabral via email at michael.cabral@yolocounty.org.
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