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Facts of the Crime:
On April 9, 1978, James Lee Henderson, 24, of Murrieta; Martha Bernice Soto, 22, and Ingrid M. Etayo, 22, both of Los Angeles, were all shot to death in an ambush by David Leslie Murtishaw. They had been making a student film in the Mojave Desert. Lance Buflo, Soto's 22-year-old husband, was the lone survivor. He was wounded in the hand. Henderson, a senior at the University of La Verne in Pomona, was described by a friend at the time as a "happy-go-lucky guy," good-looking and independent of spirit. His parents accepted their son's bachelor's degree less than three months after the triple murder. Students at La Verne dedicated a book of poetry and planted a tree in his memory. Soto had been a student at Pepperdine University in Malibu for two years, but dropped out in December 1977. Etayo, described as bright and full of anticipation, was to start post-graduate studies in economics.
Murtishaw was sentenced to death in Kern County on April 27, 1979.
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