SAN BERNARDINO, California — Prosecutors filed murder charges Tuesday against five suspects in the fatal shootings of six men at a remote dirt intersection in the Southern California desert after what investigators said was a dispute over marijuana.
The suspects each face six counts of murder, with a special circumstance of multiple counts of murder, the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office said in a statement. They were also each charged with six counts of theft.
The district attorney’s office identified them as Jose Nicolas Hernandez-Sarabia, 33; Toniel Beaz-Duarte, 35; Mateo Beaz-Duarte, 24; Jose Gregorgio Hernandez-Sarabia, 36; and Jose Manuel Burgos Parra, 26.
Toniel Beaz Duarte and Mateo Beaz Duarte appeared in court Tuesday and pleaded not guilty to all charges, the district attorney’s office said. They were appointed public defenders and ordered to return to court on February 6.
The others were expected to be arraigned on Wednesday. The county attorney’s office did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment on the case.
Authorities discovered the bodies Jan. 23 in the Mojave Desert outside El Mirage after someone called 911 and said in Spanish that he had been shot, said Sgt. Michael Warrick said this during a press conference on Monday.
All of the victims were likely shot and four of the bodies were partially burned together, Warrick said. A fifth victim was found in a Chevy Trailblazer, and the sixth was discovered nearby the next day, he said.
“This mass murder, committed in a dark, remote desert, clearly highlights the violence and crime that exists as a direct result of illegal marijuana operations,” District Attorney Jason Anderson said in Tuesday’s statement.
San Bernardino County Sheriff Shannon Dicus said Monday that the bodies were found in an area known for black market cannabis, about 50 miles northeast of Los Angeles. Dicus said his department served 411 search warrants for illegal marijuana farms across the country in 2023 and recovered 655,000 plants and $370 million.
The suspects were arrested and eight firearms were seized after deputies served search warrants Sunday in the Adelanto and Apple Valley areas of San Bernardino County and the Pinyon Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles County, sheriff’s officials said.
Officials said investigators believe all suspects in the case are in custody.
Authorities identified four of the victims as Baldemar Mondragon-Albarran, 34, of Adelanto; Franklin Noel Bonilla, 22, of Hesperia; Kevin Dariel Bonilla, 25, of Hesperia; and a 45-year-old man whose name was withheld pending family notification. Coroner’s officials were trying to identify the remaining two men.
Investigators believe Franklin Bonilla was the man who called 911, Warrick said.
California voters legalized recreational marijuana in 2016, and since then the state has become the largest legal cannabis market in the world, with billions in annual sales. But the illegal market continues to flourish.
Dicus called the black market “a scourge” that leads to violence, and he called on lawmakers to reform cannabis laws to “preserve legalization but return to harsher penalties for users of illegal pot.”
In 2020, seven people were fatally shot at an illegal marijuana grow in a rural town in neighboring Riverside County. More than twenty people lived on the site, which contained several makeshift homes for the production of honey oil, a powerful cannabis concentrate.