A California woman gunned down outside a restaurant last month was the victim of a murder-for-hire plot, police allege.
Video captured the death of Yesenia Torres, 44, after she exited a San Bernardino restaurant shortly after noon on Jan. 10.
“This brazen attack happened in broad daylight, in full view of patrons and employees who were working at the restaurant,” Goodman said at a news conference Tuesday, reports the Los Angeles Times.
Detectives initially believed it was a case of a robbery gone wrong.
However, following a thorough investigation, police revealed Torres and her 53-year-old husband Sergio Reveles were in the midst of a heated divorce that had dragged on for two years.
Det. Dominick Martinez said the couple owned businesses across Southern California worth millions of dollars.
Investigators allege her estranged husband paid four other men a large sum of cash, possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars, to stalk and eventually kill her.
Reveles, Gerardo Llamas-Torres, Arnoldo Ruelas, Reynaldo Ruelas, and Juan Perez are accused of special-circumstances murder, murder for financial gain, and robbery during murder. If convicted, they face sentences of life in prison without the possibility of parole.
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Police played surveillance video that showed Torres had just left Burger Point and was getting into her silver Mercedes SUV when a driver in a Ford Escape SUV pulled up behind her. A man armed with a gun got out and approached her as she got into the vehicle.
Following a brief chat, the man grabbed her purse and tried to shoot her, the video showed. She attempted to fight back and a struggle ensued, but the man maintained control of the firearm.
The footage then showed an employee running out of the restaurant to help Torres, but he ran back inside after shots were fired.
The gunman then chased Torres around the vehicle while firing at her. She ran toward the eatery but collapsed in the doorway. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
Martinez said a total of nine shots were fired during the attack.
San Bernardino County District Attorney Jason Anderson said it was an “unbelievably tireless effort” by detectives to identify the suspects.
“You could sense all along that there had to be more to the story,” Anderson said. “The tragedy and travesty of having an individual that was essentially assassinated at one of her favourite eateries in San Bernardino — it’s a very, very sad case.”