People You Don't Really Know

       In July of 1991 I moved my family to Downey, California in order to take a management job at the West Coast office of a large wholesale costume company.  The manager who I replaced was retiring due to issues with failing health.  Our warehouse was relatively small in size requiring only a permanent staff of a lady who did the office work and a husband and wife duo who ran the warehouse itself.  The business was primarily seasonal--a few months leading up to Halloween--so we would hire extra help for those couple of months, but most of the year it was me, Eva, and Tani and Luci.

      Estanislao Prado Gonzalez was a few years younger than I. He was a studious contemplative guy from Mexico.  I related well to him--or at least his interests--as he enjoyed listening to a wide range of music and reading a variety of books in English.  Though he spoke with a distinct accent, his English was excellent.  I relied on him to help me communicate with our Spanish speaking customers.  Since he seemed to be a passive quiet guy, Tani (as we called him) was easy to get along with.  The only times I ever saw him speaking in an aggressive angry tone was with his wife, Luz.

     Unlike her husband, Luz was a very hard worker.   Also from Mexico, Luz spoke no English, but that did not prevent her from doing her work without ever being told what to do.  And she was always doing something while much of the time Tani would sit at his shipping desk reading, listening to the radio or cassettes, or just idly daydreaming.  However they were an efficient team and together they got each day's chores done as they needed to be done.  

       The outgoing manager, a sickly heavy-set woman of about sixty, had told me that she suspected that sometimes Tani abused his spouse; that Luz would sometimes come to work with eyes blackened and looking roughed up.  I never saw any evidence that would have suggested any physical violence, but Tani did seem to exert a sort of control over her even though Luz came across as a pretty tough lady.

       Luz was an attractive woman who looked toughened by whatever her past had given her.  Probably about the same age as Tani, she had living with them two teenage daughters from a previous relationship.  Tani and Luz had a set of twins that had been born shortly before I arrived to my new job managing the costume company.

       The couple was a tremendous asset to me as I started a job that was quite different than the touring theater job I had previously held with the same company as I was now still working for.  Still, the pressure of learning a new job was soon complicated by my wife leaving me to raise our three young girls ages ranging from ten to three.  I lived very close to work and as manager I had a great deal of freedom to address the needs of my children and deal with a bad marital situation that was obviously headed toward divorce.  These were very stressful years for me.

      As the first few years passed I became comfortable with the new job while facing the personal challenges that had been thrown my way.  Fortunately people came into my life that helped things to flow more smoothly.   Soon after becoming the primary parent in charge I began having Luz's daughters babysit for me on occasions when I needed to be out.  The young girls were both teenagers and accustomed to childcare since they usually babysat the twins while Luz worked.  Both girls were competent and trustworthy.  

        They girls were beautiful, well-mannered, and seemed to be pretty intelligent.  I preferred the oldest, Edith, to babysit because she would always do some housecleaning while I was out without me ever asking her to do so.  Her sister, Gabriela, did her babysitting job with no cleaning.  Either way I was more than happy to have two babysitters I could rely on. 

         In 1994 things began to change at work.  Early in the year Eva died.  Eva was overweight, sickly, and she smoked to an excess which gave her a persistent cough.  Though it put a lot more responsibility on my shoulders, I was able to take over Eva's work even during the busy Halloween season since I could rely on Tani and Luz to manage what needed to be done in the warehouse and a couple months of temporary helpers made their work load bearable.  We got through that season with a lot of weekends and late hours, but we succeeded nevertheless.

       After Halloween the temp workers were let off and the quiet season of getting the warehouse back into order began so we could prepare for the end of the year inventory.   There was an election that I didn't pay much attention to other than noting the controversy surrounding Proposition 187 which was a law regarding illegal immigrants.  I didn't consider this to be of any great concern to me.   My interests at the time were more directed at Thanksgiving and Christmas.  

        I don't remember that particular Thanksgiving, but I do remember coming back to work on that next Monday to find myself the only one there--no Tani or Luci.   Surprised that they had not let me know anything beforehand, I went about my usual duties and waited to hear from them.  Finally a call came and Tani was on the line.

        Tani told me that they were afraid about the passing of Proposition 187 and had decided to move back to Mexico.  I was shocked since I had no idea they were working illegally.  I had figured everything had been taken care of by the lady who had hired them and I saw no problems with them being there.  Not wanting to lose such excellent employees I assured Tani that if they would come back to work, the company would get them an immigration attorney to iron things out.  He told me it was too late as Luz and the girls were already in Mexico.   Tani said he was in San Diego and wanted to come back to pick up their last paychecks which would be arriving in the office that coming Friday.  I told him that I would have to find out and that he should call me back.

        Later, the mother of Edith's boyfriend called me with great concern about the family's whereabouts.  I told her what Tani had told me, but she wasn't buying that story. She expressed a fear that something was not right and she was going to call the police.  Some time later a detective from the Downey police department contacted me.  He explained there was no absolute proof that they found, but there was enough to suspect that something dreadful might have happened.   There was what appeared to be blood on the carpets even though someone had very efficiently cleaned the now empty apartment with bleach and other strong cleaning fluids.   The other odd point was that the family had moved into the apartment just a few days prior to their leaving.  Tani had told someone at the apartments that they were going back to Mexico and that his wife and kids were already gone.

     The police had instructed me to make arrangements for Tani to pick up the checks and they would be waiting for him.  Sad and a bit nervous about Tani coming back, I waited at the center of a police stake-out.  I wasn't sure what would happen--if there would be some kind of violence or I would see Tani being hauled off glaring at me with a hurt sense of betrayal.  

       But Tani never showed up and nothing happened.  The police told me what I should do if I happened to hear from him again.   I never heard from him or saw him again.  Eventually the police tucked the issue away in the cold case file.  They didn't have the technology yet to help them tell the complete story behind the evidence the police had taken from the apartment.  Later, in 1996, some kids in Las Vegas found the remains of a body beside a street outside of town.  Upon further investigation the police found two more bodies nearby.   Police presumed the remains were prostitutes, but they could not identify those remains. 

      Finally in 1999 a Downey detective became curious about the case and started doing some investigation.   He tracked Tani to Las Vegas where he was working and living in squalid conditions with the twins.  Still it took a while to build a case without any convicting evidence.  Diligent detective work brought results and with the help of the Las Vegas police they were able to bring Tani in for questioning.   Tani eventually confessed to brutally murdering Luz Mucino and her daughters Edith, age 18, and Gabriela, age 17, and dumping their bodies.  It's likely that he had help, but though there is at least one suspect, no one else was charged with the crime.  Estanislao Gonzalez was sentenced to three life terms in 2004.

        Some readers might be thinking that this would be a good story for the television show Cold Case Files and it was--you can watch the episode here or on YouTube.   They actually brought a film crew to the warehouse I managed and followed me around that spooky place as they interviewed me.  They also filmed some of the scary props we had on display.   None of this made it into the episode.  Though no mention was made to me from the upper echelon of the company, I suspect that they too were contacted by the film company about the episode and it was all nixed for legalities and protection of our company image.  But I never asked and no one ever told me anything.  I didn't even get a DVD copy of the show like the producer had promised me.  That's show biz I guess.

       There are several  news accounts of this story if you search it out, but if you want to read a couple that appeared in papers in my area you can read the articles in the Los Angeles Times or the Long Beach Press Telegram. 

        What incidents in your life give you the creeps when you think about them?    Why do you think Tani would have murdered his wife and step-daughters so brutally?    Have you ever been interviewed for a television segment that was never aired?