2 State Parolees Arrested in Four October Murders

Two state prison parolees have been arrested on suspicion of murdering four people in separate acts last October in East Los Angeles and Baldwin Park, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said Thursday.

Alfred Arthur Sandoval, 26, of Baldwin Park, and Eugene Valenzuela, 26, of El Monte, were taken into custody last Friday at a home in Alhambra, deputies said.

Sandoval and Valenzuela are suspected in the Oct. 14 shooting deaths of Gilbert Martinez and Anthony Aceves, both 18, in East Los Angeles’ Belvedere Park.

Sandoval and Valenzuela are also being held in connection with the Oct. 31 shooting deaths of Raymond Dale Wells, 36, and his wife, Marlene Rose Wells, 31, in Baldwin Park.

Held Without Bail

The two men, who are being held without bail, have been booked on suspicion of attempting to kill Manuel Torrez, whose age is unknown, during the Oct. 14 incident at Belvedere Park. Sandoval apparently was the gunman in all of the shootings, said Sheriff’s Detective Bob Havercroft.

District attorney’s spokesman Al Albergate said murder and attempted murder charges have already been filed against Sandoval in connection with the two shooting incidents. Sandoval could be sentenced to death if convicted on the special circumstances of committing multiple murders.

As of Thursday afternoon, Albergate did not know if murder charges had been filed against Valenzuela, and prosecutors in the district attorney’s anti-gang unit who are handling the case did not return phone calls.

Authorities said that Sandoval and Valenzuela both formerly belonged to an East Los Angeles street gang and that the victims in the Oct. 14 slayings were members of a rival group. The murders, however, were “a personal thing” and not gang-related, officials added.

May Have Had Information

Havercroft said that investigators believe that the Wells couple may have been slain because they had information linking Sandoval and Valenzuela to the Belvedere Park killings.

“To call them (the Wellses) witnesses would be an exaggeration,” Havercroft said. “My victims had a relationship with the suspects, and through that relationship they had some knowledge of the murders. However, they were not witnesses, nor had they made any contact with this agency.”

Havercroft said he had no indication that the Wells couple was planning to contact authorities with information they may have had on the Oct. 14 murders.

Sandoval was released from state prison last May 20 after serving almost five years for attempted murder, said Robert Gore, a spokesman for the state Department of Corrections. Valenzuela was released on Dec. 3, 1983, after serving more than two years for assault with a deadly weapon.