Juan Corona: Key events

1956

January: Sutter County Hospital exam finds Juan V. Corona suffering from symptoms of schizophrenia. His brother, Natividad Corona, authorizes his commitment to DeWitt State Hospital in Auburn. Juan is considered "recovered" three months later and released.

1970

Feb. 20: Jose Romero Raya, 20, of Linda, was beaten about the head with a heavy knife or machete outside a restroom at the Guadalajara Cafe (now the Silver Dollar Saloon) on First Street in Marysville, owned by Natividad Corona, brother of Juan Corona. The beating fractures Raya's skull in three places and leaves him permanently disfigured.

1971

May 20: Goro Kagehiro of the 4000 block of Larkin Road, north of Eager Road, notifies Live Oak police he suspects his property is being used as a garbage dump site, and that he plans to dig in a suspicious spot where he saw an open hole the previous morning. Sheriff's Deputy Steve Sizelove is dispatched. Together, he and Kagehiro discover the first of 25 bodies that will be found in the area.

May 21: Body on the Kagehiro property identified as that of Kenneth Whitacre, 50, of Alameda.

May 22-25: Eight more bodies uncovered on the Sullivan Ranch, east of the Kagehiro property, bringing the total to nine.

May 26: Three more bodies uncovered on the Sullivan Ranch, bringing the total to 12. Farm labor contractor Juan Corona, 37, arrested. Two ledger books taken from Corona's home containing list of 34 names, dates and places. Four of the names are of confirmed victims. The first entry, dated Feb. 24, 1970, is Jose Romero Raya.

May 27-28: Eight more bodies found on Sullivan Ranch, bringing the total to 20.

May 29: 21st body discovered. Sheriff Roy Whiteaker releases report linking Corona to assault at the Guadalajara Cafe in February 1970.

May 30: Two more bodies found, bringing the total to 23. Bodies transferred from Chapel of the Twin Cities in Yuba City to Sacramento County Coroner's Office for more complete autopsies.

May 31: Tehama County Sheriff's Department looking into link between 17-month-old unsolved murder and the Corona case. Mass held at St. Isidore Catholic Church in Yuba City for the victims.

June 1: Whiteaker says, "I believe there are bodies there we will never find because the fields have been plowed, disced and irrigated."

June 2: Corona arraigned in what an Appeal-Democrat reporter wrote, "can only be described as a circus."

June 4: 25th victim found after five days of waiting for water to recede from flooded area near the Feather River.

June 5: Search called off.

June 8: Memorial for victims held at Yuba City High School football stadium. Minister from Twin Cities Rescue Mission tells the crowd that eight of Corona's known victims had slept at the mission's shelter.

June 14: Corona family asks public defender Roy Van den Heuvel to step aside and allow an attorney they had retained, Richard E. Hawk of Concord, to take over the case.

June 18: Corona taken to Sutter County General Hospital with complaints of chest pains. 1971

June 18: continued Corona will spend the next three weeks there. Autopsy reports reveal nearly every victim had been stabbed in the heart with a large, narrow knife and that the back of victims' heads had been chopped with deep cuts forming a cross.

June 21: Coroner's deputies issue public appeal in attempts to identify the last seven bodies.

June 22: Hawk moves to disqualify Judge J.J. Hankins from the Corona case. Motion is granted.

June 23: Butte County Municipal Court Judge William M. Savage is appointed by the California Judicial Council to take over the case.

June 30: Hawk says Yuba City is "just too small of a town" for his client to receive a fair trial.

July 9: Corona returned to jail.

July 10: Hawk says to Los Angeles media that Corona was framed and the killing of 25 farmworkers probably had been the work of "a twisted cult of sexual deviants."

July 25: Sutter County grand jury indicts Corona for 25 murders, thus sending the case up the chain to Sutter County Superior Court.

July 28: Corona formally denies 25 murders.

July 29: Corona back in hospital with second heart attack.

Aug. 13: Polling company employed by Hawk completes its survey to help determine whether Corona could receive a fair trial in Sutter County. More than 400 registered voters were asked 16 questions by telephone.

Aug. 20: Hawk ordered to court to answer charges he violated a court ban on publicity.

Sept. 9: Results released from survey show 70 percent of those polled believe Corona is probably or certainly guilty.

1972

Feb. 18: California Supreme Court rules capital punishment unconstitutional.

June 30: Trial moved to Solano County.

July 5: Corona moved to Solano County.

July 31: Hawk begins serving a 48-hour jail term.

Sept. 11: Jury selection begins.

Sept. 27: Jury sworn in. Colusa County Judge Richard Patton presides.

1973

Jan. 11: Case goes to jury.

Jan. 18: Corona convicted of 25 counts of murder. Hawk is arrested and spends three weeks in Solano County Jail.

Feb. 6: Corona given 25 life sentences.

Feb. 8: Appeal notice filed.

June 7: Natividad Corona is dead.

1978

May 9: Corona conviction overturned.

1982

Feb. 22: Jury selection starts for retrial.

Sept. 27: Verdict: Guilty.