A work crew earlier this month found the remains of a California woman who had been missing for nearly 18 years.
Cynthia “Linda” Alonzo, 48, was last seen on November 24, 2004, as she got into a car with her boyfriend, Eric Mora, to drive from West Oakland to her mother’s house in San Francisco for Thanksgiving.
Mora was charged with Alonzo’s death in 2007, although her body had not been found, and convicted of second-degree murder in March 2012, according to KGO. He was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison, but an appellate court dismissed the conviction four years later, saying the trial judge should not have prevented Mora’s attorneys from trying to show that someone else could have been the killer.
But later in 2016, he confessed and gave investigators the general location of Alonzo’s body, although investigators weren’t able to locate it. Mora was found guilty again in 2017 and sentenced to 11 years in prison.
On May 4, a work crew found a body in a shallow grave, wrapped in tarps.
Investigators identified the body as Alonzo.
“It was a long road to get here, and the family stuck with us along the way,” said Deputy District Attorney Danielle London, who prosecuted Mora. “We are relieved to have finally found Linda so the family can have a proper burial. For too many years, Eric Mora denied killing Linda until he confessed in 2016. May Linda finally rest in peace.”
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[Featured image: Cynthia “Linda” Alonzo/California Department of Justice]
