“Science and advances in technology are catching up to criminals who have escaped identification, capture and prosecution.  Law enforcement and criminal justice professionals recognized the important contribution that California Department of Justice criminalists make to solving cold-cases and assisting families with some sense of closure.”

-CSLEA President Alan Barcelona

SALINAS -On February 22, 2024, the Monterey County District Attorney’s Office announced that Jimmy Torres Rodriguez, 52, of Visalia, was sentenced to 50 years to life in prison for the 1999 cold-case murder of Elias Diaz. In December, a jury convicted Rodriguez of first-degree murder and found true a special allegation that Rodriguez personally and intentionally discharged a firearm resulting in the victim’s death.

Diaz, 39, was a father of seven children and the owner of a Salinas car dealership at the time of his murder. On November 19, 1999, Diaz was shot and killed by a person pretending to be a customer interested in purchasing a vehicle. The shooter fled the scene and abandoned the murder weapon and the distinctive clothing he was wearing in a trash can a few blocks away. Recent DNA testing on the clothing items, along with corroborating witness testimony, linked Rodriguez, then age 27, to the murder.

The Honorable Rafael Vazquez, who presided over the 11-day jury trial, sentenced Rodriguez to the maximum punishment available by law.

The case was investigated by:

• Salinas Police Department Sergeant Ruben Sanchez,
• District Attorney Investigator Kris Hunsaker,
• current and retired Salinas Police Department officers
• and the California Department of Justice, Bureau of Forensic Services Crime Laboratories in Watsonville and Richmond.