Kern County man found guilty of murder
BAKERSFIELD — A jury found a Kern County man guilty on several charges during a trial Wednesday.
Jose Gonzalez was found guilty of one count of first-degree murder and a count of attempted murder, in additional to a charge for being a felon in possession of a firearm.
The court also found allegations to be true that Gonzalez already had a “strike” conviction when he committed the charged offenses in his current case. This may increase his sentence.
Deputy District Attorney Gina Pearl presented the case to the jury.
The charges of which Gonzalez, who also goes by the name “Panic,” was found guilty stem from an incident on Nov. 5, when he drove with two unidentified accomplices to a trucking company in Arvin, according to a news release from the Kern County District Attorney’s Office.
Once at the trucking company, Gonzalez and the two accomplices exited the vehicle and began yelling for two men, by name, who were inside the building. They demanded Antonio Reyes and Juan De La Garza come outside. The men exited the building and Gonzalez attempted to kidnap De La Garza. He resisted and during the struggle, Gonzalez brandished a handgun and shot the man in the head.
One of the accomplices then shot Reyes in the back with a 12-gauge shotgun, resulting in his immediate death.
Gonzalez and his accomplices left De La Garza for dead, but despite suffering a gunshot wound to the head, De La Garza survived his injuries.
A witness heard the gunshots and alerted authorities, which led to the Kern County Sheriff’s Office investigating the case.
It was through eyewitness testimony and DNA evidence that Gonzalez was identified. In July 2016, an arrest warrant was issued for him, but he was not apprehended un
til June 2020, when someone saw him in Kern County.
Following the shooting, Gonzalez and his accomplices fled the scene and he later admitted that he had been “on the run for five years,” according to the news release.
“Murder cases often take years for investigation, identification and apprehension finally begin a trial,” District Attorney Cynthia Zimmer said in the release. “When a murder suspect flees the Kern County, or even the United States, law enforcement does not stop searching to ensure that the suspect is apprehended and prosecuted. The efforts of the entire law enforcement community were successful in ensuring a violent felon is not permitted to stay on our streets.”