A man who court documents say confessed to arranging a marijuana deal in the San Bernardino County desert in 2024 that turned into a bloody, fiery siege that killed six would-be customers is seeking to have statements made by him and four other defendants excluded as evidence because the men had previously been read their Miranda rights.
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Among the other statements, the motion to suppress says, another defendant admitted to setting the bodies on fire.
No action was taken on the motion when the five defendants appeared in Superior Court at the San Bernardino Justice Center on Friday, Sept. 11. Judge Cheryl C. Kersey scheduled hearings on that motion, and one requesting that the defendants be tried individually, for Dec. 18.
Toniel Baez Duarte, 37, of Apple Valley; Mateo Baez Duarte, 26, of Apple Valley; Jose Nicolas Hernandez Sarabia, 35, of Adelanto; Jose Gregorio Hernandez Sarabia, 38, of Adelanto; and Jose Manuel Burgos Parra, 28, of Adelanto have all been charged with murder and second-degree robbery. The latter four have also been charged with shooting a firearm.
District Attorney Jason Anderson is seeking the death penalty against Jose Nicolas Hernandez Sarabia and Jose Manuel Burgos Parra. Anderson has said that the defendants are members of a drug cartel.
All have pleaded not guilty in the attack on Jan. 23, 2024 in the dusty expanse known as El Mirage, where the nearest community is a ghost town.
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Deputy Public Defender Marty V. Miller, who filed the motion to suppress, wrote that his client, Toniel Baez Duarte, and others were told by sheriff’s investigators that they had the right to remain silent and have an attorney present during questioning. But they were later led into the same room at West Valley Detention Center, where investigators coaxed allegedly incriminating statements out of them, Miller said.
The motion provided the first description of what happened the day of the killings.
Investigators questioned the men in Spanish on Jan. 29.
“After invoking his right to remain silent, it is alleged that Toniel stated he set up the meeting with the victims and stated the marijuana transaction was not supposed to turn out the way it did with people murder (sic),” Miller wrote. “Toniel said once the argument started over the marijuana, he did not like the way things were headed, so he walked north toward the rear of the vehicles. Toniel said that some people consumed too much beer, and things got out of hand, which resulted in a tragedy.”
Miller also wrote: “(Jose Nicolas Hernandez Sarabia) admitted he fired approximately seven rounds from a rifle. Nicolas stated Mateo (Baez Duarte) and Toniel’s younger brother set the bodies on fire. Nicolas later admitted he used a lighter and set the bodies on fire because he feared if he did not do as he was ordered, he would end up dead also.”
The men killed were Baldemar Mondragon-Albarran, 34, of Adelanto; Franklin Noel Bonilla, 22, of Hesperia; Kevin Dariel Bonilla, 25, of Hesperia; Jose Ruelas-Calderon, 45, of El Mirage; Narciso Sandoval, 47, of Adelanto; and Adrian Ochoa-Salgado, 41, of Llano.
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