Arrest made in movie theater shooting
A 20-year-old man has been arrested in connection with the shooting at a Corona movie theater that killed a woman and left her friend on life support, Corona police said.
Joseph Jimenez was arrested at 8 p.m. Tuesday at a home in the 19000 block of Envoy Avenue, about 2 miles north of the Regal Edwards cinema.
He was booked into Robert Presley Detention Center in Riverside at 4:07 a.m. Wednesday on suspicion of murder, attempted murder and robbery with a gun. Jimenez was being held in lieu of $2 million bail.
The shooting killed Rylee Goodrich, 18, and gravely injured Anthony Barajas, 19. Both lived in Corona.
Goodrich graduated from Corona High School’s STEM Academy with a focus on health in June 2020 and said at the time she would attend Grand Canyon University in Arizona.
Barajas graduated in 2019 from Mater Dei High in Santa Ana, where he was a soccer standout and an honors student.
The shooting, police said on Wednesday, appeared to have been unprovoked.
Witness statements led detectives to Jimenez, police said without much elaboration. They searched his house and found a handgun matching the caliber of the casings found inside the theater, Cpl. Tobias Kouroubacalis said.
Inside his car, detectives found Goodrich’s wallet, Detective Gary Griffitts said.
Video cameras inside the theater were not recording Monday night, and surveillance cameras at the shopping center, Crossings at Corona, didn’t assist investigators in identifying Jimenez, Kouroubacalis said.
Goodrich and Barajas had been watching the night’s last showing of “The Forever Purge,” a movie with a plot centering on all criminal laws being suspended for 12 hours, police said.
They were discovered “in or around their seats” about 11:45 p.m. when an employee entered the theater after the movie ended, Kouroubacalis said.
They both had been shot in the head, and there was no evidence of a struggle, Griffits said.
The specific time of the shooting, and whether it occurred during the movie and how many shots were fired, were unclear.
Jimenez had one of the six tickets for the showing, Kouroubacalis said. However, police had no evidence to suggest Jimenez knew Goodrich and Barajas, or that he interacted with them before the shooting.
Investigators believe Jimenez acted alone, but why he shot the two victims was unknown, Kouroubacalis said. Police did not have information to suggest Jimenez had any criminal history.
Police were looking for the other three movie customers.
Alex Aguilera, who lives near Jimenez and had seen him doing yard work several times when driving past, said the suspect could be intimidating until he knew you.
Jimenez would stare at passing cars and sometimes walk down the middle of Envoy, which lacks sidewalks, and refuse to move out of the way for traffic, Aguilera said.
But Jimenez wouldn’t do that to any motorist he recognized, Aguilera added.
GoFundMe pages were established to raise money for funeral expenses for Goodrich’s family and for medical expenses for the Barajas family.