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Who is Tony Garcia? Navy veteran charged with murders of two Californian women in 1981 'was hiding in plain sight'

Authorities have not decided if Garcia should be sentenced to life in prison without parole or death penalty
PUBLISHED FEB 10, 2023
(L-R) Garcia has been charged with the murder of two women Lisa Gondek, 21, and Rachel Zendejas, 20, in 1981 (Ventura County District Attorney's Office)
(L-R) Garcia has been charged with the murder of two women Lisa Gondek, 21, and Rachel Zendejas, 20, in 1981 (Ventura County District Attorney's Office)

OXNARD, CALIFORNIA: Tony Garcia, a Navy veteran and martial arts instructor, has been charged with the cold case murders of two young women who were strangled in 1981. The accused from Southern California was "hiding in plain sight" for more than four decades before evidence of DNA linked to the killings, according to authorities.

On Thursday, February 10, Garcia was charged with two counts of first-degree murder and is accused of kidnapping and raping Rachel Zendejas, 20, who was strangled to death in January 1981 in Camarillo, and also for strangling Lisa Gondek, 21, in December of the same year in Oxnard. According to the official statement of the Ventura County District Attorney’s Office, the accused is an Oxnard native who appeared before the court. However, his arraignment is set to be continued to February 23.

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Who is Tony Garcia?

Tony Garcia, an Oxnard native, was a long-time karate instructor and a Navy veteran. For decades, the 68-year-old accused killer lived just a few miles away from the scenes of murder until the time his links to the murders were investigated and found, stated authorities. Ventura County Sheriff Jim Fryhoff said, “The fact is, this suspect has been hiding in plain sight, for over 40 years.”



 

Who were Tony Garcia's murder victims?

Garcia has been charged with the murder of young women Rachel Zendejas and Lisa Gondek in 1981.

Rachel Zendejas

Zendejas, who was a single mother-of-two was 20 years old when she was killed. She was believed to have been killed after she drove her daughters' babysitters' home, went out to Huntington’s Night Club, and was then found dead in a carport on Camarillo's Mobile Avenue. 

On Thursday, Fryhoff revealed in the news conference that the victim who was the youngest of five children was trying to make a better life for her daughters by going to a nearby community college to attend industrial arts classes. When Zendejas was murdered, her daughter Eva was two-and-a-half years old and her younger daughter Monica was just a year old, both of whom grew up to become nurses.

Lisa Gondek

Eleven months after Zendejas was found dead, Garcia's second murder victim Gondek was strangled and found dead in a bathtub. At the time, the victim recently shifted from Connecticut to California and worked in retail. 

According to authorities, her body was found following an apartment fire reported in Oxnard's Gonzales Road. The case investigators believed that the victim was murdered after she went to the same club Zendejas went to before she was killed.

Four decades of investigation

Investigators concluded that it was the same person who murdered the two women in 2004. However, in the law enforcement database, they could not match the DNA. In 2019, Garcia became a suspect in the cold case after investigators employed the genealogical DNA method which makes a comparison of DNA from the crime scene to the ones in commercial databases, the New York Post reported.

Erik Nasarenko, the Venture County District Attorney stated, “After more than four decades, justice is finally coming to the families of Rachel Zendejas and Lisa Gondek. As this case demonstrates, murder charges can be brought at any time and there is no statute of limitations for homicides.” Authorities have not decided if Garcia should be sentenced to life in prison without parole or death penalty.

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