On a summer day in August 2014, the body of 22-year-old Hispanic male, David Perez-Saucedo, was discovered in a rural cornfield in Benton County, Washington. He was not alone; the bodies of two women, 23-year-old Abigail Torres-Renteria, who was nearly nine months pregnant, and 19-year-old Victoria Torres, were found with him. All three Pasco residents had been shot to death in what was described as an execution-style slaying.
Perez-Saucedo had sustained two gunshot wounds to the head at close range.
The investigation into the triple homicide quickly focused on a man named Francisco J. Miranda-Resendiz, a 23-year-old co-worker of Perez-Saucedo from Umatilla, Oregon. The motive for the killings appeared to be retaliation for a break-in at Miranda-Resendiz's apartment that had occurred just hours before the shootings. According to court documents, Miranda-Resendiz confessed to his work supervisors that he had shot Perez-Saucedo, and the details he provided about the number of shots fired matched the autopsy report. He was arrested on August 10, 2014, the day after the bodies were found.
While Miranda-Resendiz was charged with the first-degree murder of David Perez-Saucedo, he was not initially charged in the deaths of the two women. Investigators believed he did not act alone and identified his father and brothers as persons of interest who were thought to have fled to Mexico shortly after the killings. Eventually, Miranda-Resendiz faced three counts of aggravated first-degree murder. In November 2015, a jury found him guilty on all three counts. For his role in the deaths of Perez-Saucedo and the two women, he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
