Painful Gift for the Children of a Slain Woman

Gabriela De La Torre and her five siblings plan to celebrate the holiday season with a new sense of peace, aware that police have identified two suspects in the killing of their mother.

Pasadena police officials recently told the De La Torre family that after 4 1/2 years of searching for the men who gunned down Olivia De La Torre outside the family restaurant on May 15, 2000, two brothers had been accused of her killing.

Authorities allege that the suspects, Ramon Cervantes Chavez and Ignacio Cervantes Chavez, are responsible for numerous crimes, including the De La Torre slaying, the fatal shooting of Brinks armored car messenger Eleazar Jaramillo in Vernon on Jan. 14, 1999, and a home-invasion robbery in Granada Hills on May 19, 2000.

The suspects are awaiting arraignment in the case.

Learning about the charges against the Chavez brothers, who are serving time for a shooting in Van Nuys in August 2000, helped bring some calm to a family that had never stopped wondering what had become of the unknown gunmen who brazenly killed Olivia De La Torre, relatives said.

Gabriela De La Torre, 24, along with adult siblings Sonia, Juan and Armando, became responsible for raising their two younger brothers, Jose, 16, and Francisco, 14, after their mother’s death. She said some moments have remained especially difficult through the years.

Sonia, 26, said tearfully that each holiday season has been tough for the De La Torre family, which moved from Pasadena to Altadena after the slaying.

“This is the time when you spend more time with your family -- you see other people with their mother and their father,” she said. “It makes it harder for you.”

Police said the slaying occurred at 7:02 a.m. on a Monday as Olivia De La Torre and her husband, Jacinto, 47, arrived at the family’s restaurant, La Guadalupana.

The couple were approached by two gunmen who tried to rob them. Shots were fired, and Olivia was struck in the head, police said. She died at Pasadena’s Huntington Memorial Hospital.

The family was left to grieve. Along the way, Jacinto moved out of the family home.

Pasadena detectives Jason Clawson and Alejandro Peinado had begun an investigation that would take them throughout Southern California and parts of Mexico in search of information that eventually led them to the alleged killers.

Finally, in November, the department announced that the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office had filed murder charges against the Chavez brothers in the De La Torre case.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Marian Thompson said the case may not go to trial for another year.

Several family members said that if the Chavez brothers were convicted of killing their mother, then they should die for their crime.

“They deserve that,” Gabriela De La Torre said.