{"id":422594,"date":"2025-12-03T20:57:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T20:57:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/422594\/"},"modified":"2025-12-03T20:57:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T20:57:10","slug":"man-sentenced-for-murder-ex-girlfriends-body-remains-missing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/422594\/","title":{"rendered":"Man sentenced for murder, ex-girlfriend’s body remains missing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alexis Berenice Guadarrama Orozco met up with her ex-boyfriend at an Otay Mesa motel on a summer night. Early the next morning, in the dark, prosecutors say, he was spotted on camera hefting a large, heavy object into his car trunk.<\/p>\n

That same day, July 16, all communication from Guadarrama stopped. Prosecutors say her ex-boyfriend, Eduardo Magana, killed her.<\/p>\n

Guadarrama remains missing. In an uncommon case where a person is tried for murder but the victim\u2019s body has not been found, a San Diego Superior Court jury convicted Magana of second-degree murder. On Tuesday, he was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was seen on surveillance going in and never coming out,\u201d Deputy District Attorney Justine Santiago said Tuesday. \u201cBased on his conduct before and after, there was ample evidence to show beyond a reasonable doubt that he killed her.\u201d<\/p>\n

The jury had been allowed to consider the lesser offense of involuntary manslaughter but settled on second-degree murder, which under the law requires that the defendant had malice before the killing.<\/p>\n

Magana\u2019s defense attorneys did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.<\/p>\n

In California, prosecutors can charge a person with murder when no body has been found if the victim is presumed dead.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors in San Diego have charged defendants in a handful of such cases<\/a> in recent years, including the still-pending case of Chula Vista resident Larry Millete, who is accused of killing his still-missing wife, May \u201cMaya\u201d Millete, who disappeared in January 2021. His jury trial is set for March.<\/p>\n

According to Santiago, evidence presented at Magana\u2019s trial indicated that Magana, a resident of Los Angeles County, and Guadarrama, who lived in Tijuana and had family in San Diego County, had agreed to meet at Star Motel in Otay Mesa.<\/p>\n

When one of Guadarrama\u2019s friends, who was aware of the planned meeting, was not able to reach her, he reported her missing. Santiago said San Diego police \u201cquickly and diligently jumped on the case, and we were able to find crucial evidence because of their fast action.\u201d<\/p>\n

Magana was arrested in Bell Gardens on July 19, three days after Guadarrama disappeared. Magana\u2019s case was also unusual in how quickly the case progressed, given the seriousness of the charge, coupled with the missing body \u2014 Guadarrama disappeared in July, and the jury trial started in October.<\/p>\n

The District Attorney\u2019s Office said in a news release that Guadarrama\u2019s remains are believed to be in Southern California, and that authorities are asking for the public\u2019s help in locating them.<\/p>\n

Anyone with information regarding this case was asked to call San Diego Police Department\u2019s Homicide Unit at 619-531-2293. Anonymous tips can be left by calling Crime Stoppers at 888-580-8477 or online at sdcrimestoppers.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alexis Berenice Guadarrama Orozco met up with her ex-boyfriend at an Otay Mesa motel on a summer night.…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":55267,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,356,5295,1370,728,50,80348,3549,3550,7264,34159,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-422594","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-courts","12":"tag-crime-and-public-safety","13":"tag-latest-headlines","14":"tag-local-news","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-otay-mesa","17":"tag-san-diego","18":"tag-san-diego-county","19":"tag-sandiego","20":"tag-south-county","21":"tag-united-states","22":"tag-united-states-of-america","23":"tag-unitedstates","24":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","25":"tag-us","26":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115657640930467345","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=422594"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422594\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=422594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=422594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=422594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}