25 years later, inmate returns to real world
Tucson woman got life sentence for murder
On the night of Sept. 24, 1994, Cherity Cox, 17, pulled up next to a vehicle full of people at a traffic light in Tucson. Veronica Torres, 14, was among the five teenage passengers inside Cox’s vehicle.
Torres crawled over a 13-year-old in the backseat to lean out the window while her friends screamed, “Blast them, blast them. Do what you have to do!”
She pointed a .25-caliber handgun out the window and fired four or five rounds at the other car, killing 18-yearold Monica Renee Perez.
Torres was 16 when she was sentenced to life in prison for first-degree murder, drive-by shooting and aggravated assault. She would be eligible for release after serving at least 25 years.
She was 40 when she was released this summer, on the 25th anniversary of the shooting.
Now she’s trying to adjust to a new life, and understanding how a decision she made as a teenager impacted the lives of so many people.
On that day in 1994, people in both vehicles were flashing gang signs and yelling, according to court records. Torres’ lawyers said in court that she had believed people in the other vehicle were armed.
Perez, a young mom, was inside the vehicle with her 16-month-old son and her teenage sister. Nikki Perez held her dying sister in her arms, according to a 1995 report by The Arizona Republic.
“My life and my family’s life has changed forever,” Nikki wrote to the court during Torres’ sentencing.
Monica loved to write poetry and was looking forward to a happy future with her son. Instead, he was raised by his grandmother.
In a statement to the court in 1994, Perez’s mother described how she moved her family out of state after the shooting in fear of retaliation from gangs.
“No one knows what our family went through,” she wrote. “I didn’t just lose a young daughter. I lost a best friend!”
The Republic reached out to the family’s lawyers for comment for this story. The family chose to not respond.
In a letter to the court before she was sentenced, Torres apologized.
“I’m sorry for what I did,” she stated. “At the time, I didn’t know what I know now. I can never understand the pain and sadness I caused (the victim’s) family or her little boy.”
Growing up, Torres never thought
“I’m sorry for what I did . ... I can never understand the pain and sadness I caused ...” Veronica Torres
she could go to college, or even make the seven-hour drive to Disneyland. She lived in South Tucson surrounded by drugs, gangs and poverty.
“At that time, I didn’t have a choice,” she told The Republic. “It was gangs. It was right there.”
She moved nine times as a kid, and told the Arizona Board of Executive Clemency that she remembers her childhood “by the schools she attended as if they were chapters in a book.”
Even still, Torres excelled in academics and sports in school. A former coach spoke at her May 2019 parole hearing about Torres’ ability in basketball.
A school parent volunteer in 1995 wrote a letter in the Arizona Daily Star about his experience with Torres.
“I remember thinking at the time that this was a young woman who not only had great potential for her future, but who was a genuinely good and caring person, someone who had appreciated the efforts not only of her teachers but also of volunteers like me,” the parent wrote.
Torres was arrested for the fatal shooting behind the first school she attended, Drexel Elementary.
During the two years leading up to her trial and sentencing, when most kids her age were learning to drive and starting to date, she was isolated in a locked room at the Pima County jail because she was the only female in the juvenile unit.
Her only contact was with correctional officers. “I was scared. I cried a lot,” Torres told The Republic, saying she felt ashamed and confused.
None of it seemed real to her.
She discovered that she could escape her emotional pain through learning and reading, just like she had at school.
Torres spent most of her time reading. She earned her GED at age 16.
“That was the only way that I could deal with being in prison, was to get away, to travel the world through books,” Torres said. “Live vicariously through other people by hearing their stories and just learning.”
When Torres was sentenced, she was sent to Perryville, a woman’s prison. She stayed in a unit for minors for the first few years.
Torres never thought she’d live to reach age 40 and have a chance to leave prison. It still didn’t seem real to her.
While at Perryville, Torres took up meditation. She decided when she was released, she would take a walk on the grounds of the historic San Xavier Mission south of Tucson.
It was one of the first things she did when she was released.
“That was the best day of my life,” she said. “It was a spiritual walk.”
Torres wasn’t able to attend her first hearing in front of the clemency board in May, like many people in Arizona prisons. She was conferenced in by video phone.
“It’s pretty obvious you have the support of family and community,” board member David Neal told a nervous Torres at the start of the hearing.
She couldn’t see the many people filling the rows in the small hearing room in support of her, or the countless others crowded into the lobby. Friends, family, former employers, Department of Corrections staff and lawyers came to speak on her behalf.
“I just didn’t know that people would really come through for me,” Torres told The Republic. “I felt loved. I felt blessed.”
A smile appeared on Torres’ face when the board asked what she would do for work. Torres explained that she gained a “strong skill set in marketing and sales” while in prison.
While at Perryville, Torres worked at a call center called Televerde. Televerde offers female inmates employment while teaching them life skills. She received more than 20 awards while working with the company.
Her training led to opportunities at companies willing to hire Torres after she was released. Torres was able to quickly find a job once she was released.
Her former boss at Televerde, Jason Cortel, told the board that Torres mentored other employees.
Other people with various connections to the Department of Corrections told the board of Torres continually mentoring others while she was in prison. She spoke to juvenile offenders and told others what life was like in prison.
Torres is a member of the Pascua Yaqui tribe. During her time in the Santa Cruz unit, she advocated for more religious resources for the indigenous community. She supported drum circles, and advocated for access to sweat lodges and traditional healing herbs.
At her hearing, a public defender for the Pascua Yaqui Tribe told the board how the tribe will support Torres through counseling, a scholarship to the University of Arizona and other services.
Torres said she hopes to help the tribe mentor youth.
Torres earned her paralegal certificate to understand her own legal work in 2007. Blackstone Career Institute provides an accredited certificate program to inmates.
After obtaining the certificate, she started to help other women understand the legal process.
In 2017, The Republic released a report on the many people in Arizona prisons who were sentenced to life in prison with the chance of parole after 25 or 35 years after the state abolished the sentence. Parole was abolished in Arizona for all crimes in 1994.
However, juvenile offenders such as Torres who were sentenced to life with the possibility of release after a certain amount of years are able to receive parole.
After the report was published, Torres and another inmate told women in Perryville with the sentence and explained what it meant. Torres said some people discouraged her from wanting to continue to learn while she was in prison. She didn’t let their words stop her.
While Torres was at Perryville, Arizona State University offered non-credit courses in humanities. She took classes in civic engagement, history, philosophy and more.
Torres earned an associate degree while in prison through Rio Salado College.
In hopes of furthering her education, she reached out to professors at the University of Arizona. She found a mentor in associate professor of anthropology Maribel Alvarez.
Alvarez spoke to the board at Torres’ May hearing. Alvarez said maybe if things were equal in life, Torres would have found a better path earlier and would now be her colleague, a lawyer, an engineer or even a playwright.
“I still don’t know if we failed society, or if we failed her,” Alvarez said.
Currently, Alvarez is helping Torres make sure she has all of her prerequisites to start classes as a junior at the University of Arizona.
Torres hopes to study sociology or communications.
During her May hearing, clemency board members Neal, Louis Quinonez and C.T. Wright discussed what they heard from Torres, her supporters, the victim’s family and lawyers.
Perez’s family didn’t want Torres to go free. Neal called the case unique and tragic. He said Torres, when she was sentenced, was younger than anyone he has dealt with in the prison system.
“Ms. Torres has shown true remorse for what she did,” he said.
Quinonez said he didn’t think there was anything Torres could do that would help the victims, but also didn’t think she should spend the rest of her life in prison.
Wright reminded the board that they were dealing with human beings and said he could understand both sides.
“She has been quite successful with what she has done over the years,” he said. “There is also something called grace.”
The board decided to release Torres from prison. Her supporters waiting in the lobby erupted in cheers.
Now free, Torres hopes to spend more time with family, and to one day make that trip to Disneyland.
She is navigating new experiences like learning how to drive, figuring out what clothes to wear, and what TV news channels to watch. She’s started a growing list of new things to try — like golf.
She wants to help her nieces and nephews experience more in life and teach them about issues like water conservation.
“I want to take them to museums and expose them to something that they’ve never been exposed to,” Torres said.
She is working with the Arizona Justice Project to help spread awareness about people who are sentenced to life in prison as juveniles.
Twenty-five years is not enough. That was what Monica’s mother expressed to the board over the phone during Torres’ May hearing.
Perez’s mother asked the board to not release Torres because the family believes she should spend her life in prison.
Lawyers for Monica’s family told the board how the fatal shooting not only caused pain, but also led to fear and financial problems.
Torres paid restitution to the family. But Monica’s mother called it “blood money.”
Torres told The Republic she wants the family to have peace, but knows it may never happen because of what she did.
“I always said if it meant me staying in prison for the rest of my life for them to have peace, then I will do that for them,” she said.
Torres said she has matured and learned since being a teenager. But she still struggles with a constant internal battle between wanting forgiveness and remembering that a son grew up without his mother.