On a summer evening in Yuma, Arizona, the lives of a mother and her four children were stolen in an act of brutal and calculated violence. Six-year-old Danny Heredia III, a young Male, was the youngest among them, his life cut short on June 24, 2005, in a crime that would haunt the community for years. That day, Danny, his mother Adrienne Heredia, 29, and his nine-year-old sister, Inez Newman, were murdered inside their home on La Mesa Street.
The tragedy also claimed the lives of
Adrienne’s boyfriend, 35-year-old Luis Rios, and two other children who were staying in the home, 13-year-old Andreas Crawford and 12-year-old Enrique Bedoya. The horrific discovery was made after police responded to reports of gunshots and screams. They first found Rios in the backyard, suffering from multiple gunshot wounds; he died shortly after at a nearby hospital. Fearing a hostage situation, officers cautiously entered the home and found a scene of unimaginable horror.
Inside the quiet house, the five remaining victims were found. While Adrienne, Inez, Andreas, and Enrique had been asphyxiated, young Danny had been bound with electrical cords and shot to death. The sheer brutality of the murders, which prosecutors believe unfolded over a span of at least six hours, left the city of Yuma in shock and a family shattered. For years, investigators worked tirelessly, conducting over 1,300 interviews and following up on thousands of tips, yet the case remained unsolved.
The architect of this devastation was a man the victims knew and trusted: Preston Alton Strong. He was a close friend of Luis Rios, so much so that his presence in the family's home would not have raised any alarm. The motive, prosecutors would later argue, was rooted in greed and resentment. Rios had been financially supporting Strong for years, but shortly before the murders, he decided to cut him off. This refusal to loan Strong more money is believed to have triggered the deadly rampage.
It wasn't until November 2007 that police publicly named Strong as a suspect. By that time, he was already in custody on unrelated fraud charges. The investigation slowly pieced together the evidence, including Strong's fingerprints on plastic bags found near the victims' bodies and his DNA on the steering wheel of Rios's car. Strong was a serial killer, and while awaiting trial for the La Mesa murders, he was convicted in 2012 for the separate 2007 killing of a Yuma physician, Dr. Satinder Gill, for which he received a life sentence.
In 2014, nine years after the killings, Preston Strong was finally indicted on six counts of first-degree murder for the deaths of the Rios and Heredia family. The trial took place in 2017, and after months of testimony, a jury found him guilty on all counts. The aggravating factors, including the number of victims and the young ages of the children, led the jury to recommend the death penalty.
Preston Alton Strong was sentenced to death for the murders of Danny, his mother, his sister, and the three others killed that day. His conviction brought a painful and long-awaited conclusion for the surviving family members. Strong was also convicted of numerous other felonies, including aggravated assault, armed robbery, and kidnapping. He remains on death row in Arizona, his appeals consistently denied by the state's Supreme Court, ensuring he will face the consequences for a day of violence that ended seven lives, including that of a six-year-old boy.
