UPDATE: Charges announced this afternoon by the Orange County District Attorney's Office detail the identity of the murder victim, how he was killed and his relationship to his supposedly confessed killer. Updates throughout . . .
Jose Fuentes, 23, and Pedro Cerecer, 47, had been lovers for about a month.
For most of that time, the younger Santa Anan had been plotting to murder the older man, according to prosecutors.
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Fuentes is accused of going to Cerecer's guesthouse in the 1300 block of South Joane Way in Santa Ana Saturday to share drinks and have sex.
Once Cerecer fell asleep, Fuentes allegedly picked up a decorative rock, straddled Cerecer as he slept and bashed the older man to death.
Fuentes is accused of then stealing his lover's credit cards,
cell phone,
and electronic equipment, including his flat screen TV, and loading the
stolen goods into Cerecer's Toyota sedan. Fuentes then
drove off.
The next morning, Fuentes was pulled over in the sedan by Garden Grove Police and arrested on suspicion of possession of a controlled substance and driving without a valid license.
Earlier reports indicated three passengers were also arrested and that the car was impounded.
Santa Ana Police officers summoned Monday morning to Cerecer's guesthouse discovered “a bloody scene.” They also discovered the victim's sedan was among the missing possessions, so they ran the plates.
That check led to the police impound lot and, eventually, Fuentes' Orange County Jail cell. It was there that police earlier said Fuentes confessed to killing Cerecer alone, just so he could rob his lover, who worked for a
maintenance company and made money on the side as a soccer
referee.
Fuentes faces arraignment in Santa Ana Thursday morning on charges of one felony count
each of special circumstances murder, first degree robbery, and first
degree residential burglary. The special circumstance sentencing
enhancements include murder by lying in wait, murder in the commission
of a robbery, and murder in the commission of a burglary.
If convicted, he could get life in state prison without the
possibility of parole. He is being held without bail.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.