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Thread: Tomas Verano Cruz - California Death Row

  1. #1
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    Tomas Verano Cruz - California Death Row


    Deputy Kenneth Perrigo


    Tomas Verano Cruz

    Facts of the Crime:

    Sentenced to death in Sonoma County on September 9, 1994 in the October 21, 1991 murder of deputy Kenneth Perrigo. Perrigo arrested Cruz and Carlos Castillo Estrada on the evening of October 21 after they were found passed out drunk in a car in front of the fairgrounds in McArthur. Belligerent, Cruz repeatedly threatened to kill Perrigo during the arrest, court documents show.

    Perrigo nonetheless agreed to work overtime to transport Cruz and Estrada halfway to Redding, where he was to meet another deputy to take them the rest of the distance to jail, documents say. Perrigo didn't know Cruz and Estrada had managed to reach under the driver's seat and find the 9mm handgun the deputy had stored there in a fanny pack. Cruz shot Perrigo in the back of the head through the Plexiglas screen that separated the deputy from his charges. The vehicle swerved, rolled over at least once and careened off Highway 299. After the two suspects kicked out the back window and got free from the car, Cruz put down the gun and Estrada picked it up. He shot Perrigo in the neck while the deputy was slumped over the steering wheel, documents show.

    Estrada pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison.

  2. #2
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    July 28, 2008

    Court upholds death sentence


    A state appeals court has upheld a Sonoma County jury's death penalty verdict against the man who murdered a Shasta County sheriff's deputy in 1991.

    The case against Tomas Cruz, now 40, was moved to Sonoma County when both sides agreed an impartial jury couldn't be found in tiny Shasta County.

    Cruz was convicted of first-degree murder in the October 1991 shooting death of Deputy Ken Perrigo.

    Cruz, then a 23-year-old farmworker, and another man were arrested for public drunkenness. While waiting in the back of Perrigo's patrol car in Burney, they found the deputy's backup gun in his fanny pack, tucked beneath the driver's seat.

    As Perrigo was driving the pair to the jail in Redding, Cruz shot him in the back of the head. The second suspect, Carlos Castillo Estrada, then 22, then took the gun and shot the deputy in the neck.

    The pair escaped after the patrol car crashed. They were captured five days later. Estrada pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison.

    A Sonoma County jury convicted Cruz in August 1994 and recommended the death penalty, the first time since 1981 that a Sonoma County jury sentenced a killer to death. The last death sentence recommended by a Sonoma County jury for a local case was for Robert Walter Scully Jr., who was convicted of killing Sheriff's Deputy Frank Trejo with a sawed-off shotgun in 1995.

    In an order released this week, a unanimous appeals court panel wrote: "All of defendant's claims having been found to be without merit, we affirm the judgment in its entirety."

    http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article...EWS/807260354/

  3. #3
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    On March 2, 2009, the US Supreme Court denied Cruz's certiorari petition.

    http://www.supremecourt.gov/Search.a...es/08-8044.htm

  4. #4
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    On June 18, 2013, Cruz filed a habeas petition in Federal District Court.

    http://dockets.justia.com/docket/cal...v02792/267264/

  5. #5
    Senior Member CnCP Legend JLR's Avatar
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    Cruz filed another habeas petition before the California Supreme Court on November 17, 2014, and it has been fully briefed since September 18, 2015.

    https://appellatecases.courtinfo.ca....NTICAgCg%3D%3D

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