Release Upsets Westminster Victim’s Family

The family of a 14-year-old Westminster girl who was shot and killed outside a birthday party nearly four years ago criticized Mexican authorities Saturday for freeing the man suspected in the slaying.

“I feel defrauded by the judge,” said Evelia Sanchez, grandmother of Lilia Vianey Guevara, who was killed in September, 1991.

A Mexican judge Monday released Roberto Garcia, 22, who police say fired the shot that killed Guevara. The judge ruled that documents submitted by Orange County authorities were not properly certified.

Garcia was arrested in his hometown of Tijuana, Mexico, on Aug. 30 after Orange County authorities alerted Mexican police.

“Unfortunately, they let him go,” Tustin Sgt. Steve Lewis said Saturday. “It’s been appealed by the prosecutor’s office in Mexico. It’s going to be the [Orange County] district attorney’s choice what we do from here.”

Garcia and his cousins, Ruben and Albert Guerrero, are accused of killing the Westminster High School sophomore at a birthday party after a high school football game. Police said the three men provoked a fistfight with party-goers outside a Boleyn Circle home. When Guevara and some other teens fled, the three men allegedly pulled a gun and fired at the Jeep the teens were riding in.

Witnesses said the three men passed the gun among themselves as they fired at the Jeep. Guevara was killed after a bullet hit her chest.

Ruben Guerrero, 27, of Irvine was convicted of the murder in May, 1992, and sentenced to 26 years to life in prison. Albert Guerrero remains at large, police said.

On Saturday, Sanchez said she is angry with the systems in both countries for allowing the slaying suspect to slip through their grasp because of paperwork. She said she plans to write letters to the Mexican government and its president.

“Monday I will go to the district attorney’s office to see what happened,” Sanchez said. “He is free. . . . They should follow the rules.”