Two men wanted in the 2018 stabbing death of a 41-year-old man who was related to one of the suspects were in custody Thursday after being arrested in Placerville.
Family members discovered the body of Hernan Cortes Gonzalez of Long Beach in a motorhome near Harbor Avenue and 15th Street at about 7:10 p.m. on July 6, 2018. He had suffered multiple stab wounds to his upper body, according to the Long Beach Police Department.
A witness reported seeing Gonzalez alive between 5:30 a.m. and 6:30 a.m. the day before he was found dead, police said.
With assistance from the U.S. Marshals Service, Long Beach police on Tuesday arrested Daniel Castro Fernandez, 22, and Jason Hernan Cortes, 20, both of Corning, a city about 100 miles north of Sacramento in Tehama County, police said.
Both suspects were taken to Long Beach, where they were booked on suspicion of murder, according to the LBPD.
Investigators say the killing stemmed from a robbery gone bad and that Cortes and the victim "were relatives and known to each another."
Detectives presented their case to the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office, which charged each of the suspects with one count of murder and one count of conspiracy to commit robbery, according to DA's spokesman Ricardo Santiago. The murder charge includes the special circumstance allegation of murder during the commission of a robbery, he said.
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Fernandez and Cortes are due to be arraigned on Dec. 19 in Long Beach.
Prosecutors will decide later whether to seek the death penalty against the two, who are being held without bail.
Placerville is about 35 miles northeast of Sacramento in El Dorado County.
