Bee reporters answer questions about area crime news, trends and other issues.
QUESTION: I dated a female from Woodland who, while on her way to visit me, was shot and killed by someone in another car. Two others in the car with her were injured but survived. Was anyone ever arrested? This happened in the early '90s.
Submitted by: Robert, Stockton
ANSWER: Three men were arrested in the 1990 gang-related shooting in which 24-year-old Norma Hernandez of Woodland was killed and two other people were seriously wounded.
According to stories in The Bee, Hernandez was a passenger in a car also occupied by Carlos Gamino, Alfredo Gamino, Lisa Zaragoza and Yolanda Jiminez. The car was waiting at a traffic signal at Broadway and Fifth Street in Sacramento in the early morning hours of Aug. 3, 1990, when a Buick Regal pulled alongside.
The prosecutor said Donald M. Johnson of Fairfield, in the front passenger seat of the Buick, emptied the gun into the interior of the other car, killing Hernandez and seriously injuring Zaragoza and Carlos Gamino.
The shooting was "payback" for a confrontation earlier that night between Varrio Franklon gang members and the Gamino brothers, who were associated with the Broderick Boys, the prosecutor said.
The three women had joined the Gamino brothers later to go cruising and were unaware of the earlier incident.
Johnson was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison for the second-degree murder of Hernandez, plus 28 years for four counts of attempted murder. Now 41 years old, he is at California State Prison, Solano, in Vacaville.
Two accomplices, Arthur Jiminez and Anthony Luis Rodriguez, each pleaded to a charge of voluntary manslaughter. Jiminez, who provided the gun, was sentenced to 18 years and four months, and Rodriguez, who was driving the car from which the shots were fired, was sentenced to 17 years and four months in prison.
Have a Sacto 911 question? Submit it here.
About Comments
Reader comments on Sacbee.com are the opinions of the writer, not The Sacramento Bee. If you see an objectionable comment, click the "report abuse" button below it. We will delete comments containing inappropriate links, obscenities, hate speech, and personal attacks. Flagrant or repeat violators will be banned. See more about comments here.