The Mexican Juan Corona, who came to be considered the greatest serial killer in the history of the United States, died on Monday, 4, at age 85. "The Machete Assassin" was serving a life sentence in California, where he was convicted in 1971 of 25 homicides and concealment of the victims' corpses.
The statement was made by the California Department of Correction and Rehabilitation. Corona, who was serving a sentence at Corcoran penitentiary, was hospitalized and "died of natural causes," but more details were not disclosed.
A US immigrant, Corona worked as a farm labor contractor. Most of the victims of the serial killer were self-employed farm workers who ended up stabbed. The practice earned the nickname "The Machete Slayer," because of the use of this kind of scrub-cutting knife to commit the killings.
Corona was discovered after a peach farmer, who hired the Mexican to recruit employees, suspect a hole in the property, which appeared to have been closed a short time ago. The farmer called the authorities because he thought they had invaded his orchard to bury garbage, but police officers found a dead man with his head cut off and his body punctured.
Corona was arrested a week after the appearance of the body of the first victim. Subsequent searches revealed another 24 people buried in various locations who had been murdered by the serial killer, many of whom were hired by the contractor.
In 1971, California Justice sentenced Corona to 25 life imprisonments, one for each proven murder. Suspects of more homicide committed by him have never been confirmed. The convict nearly died two years after the trial, when he was stabbed inside a jail, an incident that cost him the loss of his left eye.
Corona's trial was overturned in 1978 on the grounds that, when he was guilty, he had not received adequate legal assistance from the lawyer. The serial killer remained incarcerated until the end of a new open process, which also resulted in the conviction of 25 life imprisonments.
Corona had eight parole applications denied by California Justice, the last of them in 2016. "It was a brutal killer. He stabbed people to death, "Sutter County prosecutor Amanda Cooper was quoted as saying by the AP to justify his refusal to serve the sentenced three years ago.
