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OXNARD : Man Pleads Guilty in 1976 Killing

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A conscience-stricken plumber pleaded guilty Monday to a 17-year-old killing outside an Oxnard bar.

Richard F. Maytorena, 46, of Riverside County pleaded guilty to the slaying of Claude W. Bloomquist, who was burned to death in his car in July, 1976. At the time, Oxnard police investigated the death as suspicious but concluded it had probably been accidental.

Last month, however, Maytorena walked into the Moreno Valley sheriff’s station and confessed to killing Bloomquist, investigators said.

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“It’s been bothering him for a long time,” said Assistant Public Defender Duane A. Dammeyer, who represented Maytorena when he entered the guilty plea in Ventura County Municipal Court.

After turning himself in, Maytorena was surprised to learn how Bloomquist had died, Dammeyer said. According to the attorney, Maytorena said Bloomquist fell during a fight and had no pulse afterward. Assuming he had killed the man, Maytorena placed the body in Bloomquist’s car and set it on fire to cover up the crime, Dammeyer said.

Instead, it was the fire that proved fatal to the 24-year-old body-shop worker, according to the coroner’s report.

“He was very shocked about the cause of death,” Dammeyer said.

Municipal Judge Bruce A. Clark accepted Maytorena’s guilty plea to second-degree murder and sent the case to Superior Court Judge Charles W. Campbell Jr. for sentencing, scheduled for April 12. Under the sentencing law in effect at the time of the crime, Maytorena faces a sentence of five to seven years in prison.

The victim’s father, Francis Bloomquist of Warren, Ohio, said he always believed his son had been murdered but was surprised that the case was finally solved.

“I didn’t expect they’d ever find anyone,” he said. “He got away with this for a long time. . . . It takes a load off my mind.”

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