SANTA ANA, California (AP) - A jury has convicted a man of killing a prostitute whose body was found 25 years ago in a Southern California orange grove.
Fifty-nine-year-old Leonardo Sanchez was found guilty Wednesday of murder.
Prosecutors say Sanchez, a convicted rapist, attacked 19-year-old Cari Ann Parnes in 1992. She was found with a smashed skull in an Irvine-area grove.
Authorities say Parnes was an aspiring model and cocaine addict who’d turned to prostitution.
Prosecutors say DNA testing linked the crime to Sanchez, who’d served time for a previous rape.
His attorney said Sanchez had sex with the woman but didn’t kill her.
Sanchez had a long criminal record, was deported six times from the U.S. and used some 30 aliases before his arrest in Mexico a few years ago.
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