A reward for information that leads to the masked killer of a 25-year-old fast-food worker in El Monte was upped Monday to $55,000.
Juan Manuel Vidal was shot at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 21 while working his shift at a Jack in the Box restaurant in the 9200 block of Flair Drive. The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors last Tuesday approved a $20,000 reward for information leading to the killer's arrest and prosecution.
The city of El Monte later added $25,000, and today, the Jack in the Box franchisee where Vidal worked and the restaurant's corporate office each added $5,000. The killer was wearing a Halloween mask and went into the restaurant intent on robbing it, Sheriff Jim McDonnell told reporters last week.
"According to witnesses and the camera surveillance from the scene, the suspect jumped over the front counter of the location, demanded money and then shot the victim almost immediately," McDonnell said.
The gunman, apparently panicked, fled without getting any money, and got into the passenger seat of a getaway vehicle that sped away. Authorities believe the same man robbed a Subway sandwich shop on Rivergrade Road in Irwindale shortly after 7:30 p.m. on Oct. 19.
The suspect and an accomplice fled with an undisclosed amount of money in that heist. At a news conference this morning, El Monte police Chief David Reynoso appealed for public help in tracking down Vidal's killer.
"This $55,000 is money we hope encourages someone to say something," Reynoso said. "The killer is a coward and a threat to our community."
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Vidal's mother, Mary Smay, appealed for tipsters to come forward with information to help solve the killing.
"If anyone has information about this man who took my son's life, please turn him in," she said. "Maybe he will do this to another family."
County Supervisor Hilda Solis, who sponsored the county's reward motion, said Vidal was training to be a pharmacist tech and had gotten engaged to be married not long before he died. McDonnell said Vidal "was a young man on the right track, doing the right things, all of the right things, working, when this suspect came in and took his life."
Anyone with information on the shooting was asked to call sheriff's Detectives Adan Torres or Gustavo Carrillo, (323) 890-5500, or Crime Stoppers at (800) 222-8477.
