Reedley man gets death sentence in Dinuba slayings
A Reedley man was sentenced to death on Friday in the South County Justice Center for the 2015 murders of two men in a Dinuba orchard.
Hernan Rodriguez, 29, of Reedley, was sentenced to death.
In the early morning darkness of May 20, 2015, in a plum orchard off Avenue 400 and Road 74 in Dinuba, field workers arrived to begin their day picking fruit in order to avoid the late spring heat. At 9:30 am, the workers took their lunch together seated on the ground while heating up their food in sauce pans with small portable propane heaters around portable coolers.
Rodriguez, who was a co-worker in the orchard, approached the victims armed with a highly modified, sawed-off 9mm semi-automatic rifle wrapped in duct tape. He positioned himself behind a van so he had a strategic vantage point, took a soldier’s stance holding his weapon, and fired seven shots in rapid succession at six men
seated on the ground.
One 57-year-old victim died at the scene from a gunshot wound to his head. A 65-yearold victim was rushed to the hospital, where he lost brain activity after a day, and was taken off life support approximately two weeks later. A 60-year-old victim was shot through the stomach and arm, and survived multiple surgeries and more than three months in the hospital.
Rodriguez immediately fled but was apprehended a short time later by the Dinuba Police Department and the Tulare County Sheriff’s Office. A police canine located the gun in the orchard, stuck in the branches of a tree, later that day.