Gabriel Gomez Trial: 2000

What little hard evidence police had suggested that Gomez was the last person to see Sandra Ann Rosas alive. When her daughters arrived home at 11 P.M. on the night she disappeared, they had found the front door open and broken windshield glass scattered in the driveway. The family's van was missing. The daughters frantically dialed their mother's cell phone number. Although no one seemed to answer the call, a phone connection opened and they could hear the voices of their mother and uncle. Two days later, police found the empty Rosas van in nearby La Puente. Gomez was arrested and detained without bail on charges that he had violated the terms of parole he was serving for a 1989 arson conviction. Authorities tried to reason with the ex-convict, attempting to get some idea of where the missing woman might be. Gomez denied having anything to do with her disappearance. As the Rosas family's excruciating wait turned into days, police expressed increasingly less hope that she might be found alive.

The Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office charged Gomez with kidnapping and first-degree murder. The murder charge was filed "with special circumstances"—if found guilty of a murder occurring during the commission of a felony, such as kidnapping, Gomez would be eligible for the death penalty. When Gomez was charged and arraigned, he pleaded not guilty, continuing to deny taking part in any crime.