Sketches could bring to light identities of bodies found in
sewer plant more than a decade ago
Gilroy – Detectives are seeking help identifying two men whose bodies were found in city wastewater tanks nearly a decade ago.
Known only as John Doe #1 and John Doe #2, the two bodies were found in July 1997 by city workers. The first body, John Doe #1, was found July 16 in an above-ground holding tank, used to store tomato wastewater from Gilroy’s cannery; the second, John Doe #2, was found two weeks later in the same location, a plastic bag tied over his head. When found, the first body was separated from its head, which was located Sept. 17, 1997, in a nearby percolation pond in southeast Gilroy.
Both bodies were severely decomposed when found, aided by the acidic wastewater. Coroners estimated that the men were dead for six months to a year before their bodies were recovered. John Doe #2 is believed to have been strangled. The cause of John Doe #1’s death is unknown.
The tanks where the bodies were found were destroyed after the Gilroy cannery closed.
Police are reviving the search on the heels of another cold case, now gone hot, in Castro Valley. More than three years after a teen girl’s body was found stuffed into a green canvas bag, left outside a Castro Valley restaurant, the Sheriff’s office has identified the girl as Yesenia Nungaray Becerra, who’d moved from Yahualica, Mexico to Hayward, seeking a better life.
After the girl was identified last week, detectives also named a “person of interest”: Miguel Angel Nunez Castaneda, also from Yahualica, who worked at the restaurant where her body was found, and lived with her before she was killed.
Gilroy Detective Stan Devlin hopes that if the Gilroy victims are recognized, suspects will be easier to track. After dental analysis determined that the men were likely Hispanic, possibly from Mexico, detectives sent these images to the Mexican consulate, yielding “a couple close ones,” said Devlin, but no results. One Mexican couple came to the U.S. for DNA testing, to see if one of the victims was their son, but the DNA didn’t match.
The case also appeared on America’s Most Wanted, said Devlin, but the hoped-for leads never surfaced.
A Sunnyvale detective couldn’t reconstruct the first skull because it lacked a jaw. Instead, he provided a sketch of the victim’s likely appearance. New skull reconstruction techniques could have aided the investigation, said Devlin, but it’s too late to use them: The bodies are now buried in Mexico.
In a controversial move, a San Jose educator obtained the bodies through a court order in April 2005, and decided to bury them in her family plot in Michoacan, Mexico. The woman, Esperanza Zendejas, said the story of Mexican immigrants who go missing in California was all too familiar.
Emily Alpert covers public safety issues for The Dispatch. She can be reached at 847-7158, or at
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