Jury Convicts Man in Slaying of Singer’s Wife

Deliberating a crime in which the body was never found, a Pomona Superior Court jury took less than two hours Tuesday to convict a man of kidnapping and murdering his half sister, the wife of Los Lobos’ lead singer and guitarist Cesar Rosas.

Gabriel Gomez, 40, faces life in prison without the possibility of parole in the death of Sandra Rosas, 47, who was abducted from her Rowland Heights home Oct. 23, 1999.

Her family--husband, mother, two daughters, and various cousins, aunts and uncles--breathed audible sighs of relief when the verdict was announced in court about 10:30 a.m. Many in the courtroom sobbed.

“It was kind of an obvious thing for us, for the whole family, and there was no reason to look into it further than Gabriel,” said Ruben Robles, a cousin who had testified in the weeklong trial, after the verdict.

He was the first relative that Rosas’ daughters called after they discovered their mother missing.

“We’re just relieved that they saw things the way we did, and that chapter is closed,” Robles said. “We’re still missing the person we loved and nothing is going to bring [her] back.”

Jurors began deliberating Monday afternoon after hearing closing arguments, then returned briefly Tuesday morning before announcing at 9:30 a.m. they had reached a decision. The announcement was delayed until family members came to the courtroom.

“I am pleased,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Donald Clem, who called 20 witnesses during the trial. “You had a lot of evidence to consider, but obviously they were persuaded by the evidence and they certainly did the correct thing.”

In his case, Clem painted Gomez as an unreliable person who told “lies or half-truths.” Gomez never confessed, he said, “but he never said he didn’t do it.”

“The defendant says on his own, ‘I can’t remember where the body is,’ ” Clem told jurors during his closing remarks Monday.

Clem relied on DNA evidence that showed traces of blood from Gomez and Rosas in Rosas’ van, which was found abandoned in La Puente two days after she disappeared. He also used testimony from Rosas’ daughters, who said they called their mother on a cellular phone and overheard Gomez threaten to rape and strangle her. A police dog traced Gomez’s scent from the van to the La Puente house of a friend of Gomez, testimony showed.

Clem contended that Gomez killed his half sister because he was jealous of the family’s fame and wealth stemming from the Grammy-winning Los Lobos rock group, which has won wide popularity with its East Los Angeles-influenced music.

Defense attorney Antonio Bestard declined to comment Tuesday. During the trial, he argued that the prosecution’s evidence was full of holes and mostly circumstantial. He said Gomez’s threats weren’t to be taken seriously because the siblings often yelled at each other in a disparaging way.

Gomez will be sentenced Nov. 16. The conviction carries a special circumstances charge because the murder occurred during a kidnapping.