A Sacramento Superior Court jury today convicted Juan Carlos Orozco of first-degree murder in the Aug. 26, 2010, torture and robbery killing of Galen Joseph May in the victim's apartment in Antelope.
Judge Greta Curtis Fall scheduled Orozco's sentencing for April 19. Orozco, 23, is facing a term of life in prison without parole on the jury's special-circumstance findings that he inflicted torture on May and that he killed him during the course of a robbery. Officials said he stabbed May 22 times with a screwdriver before asphyxiating him with a belt.
May, 69, was a retired assistant to Northern California's most prominent thoroughbred racing trainer, Jerry Hollendorfer. May had helped Hollendorfer prepare three horses for the Kentucky Derby.
According to evidence at trial, Orozco lived in an apartment directly below May's unit in the North Country Vista Apartments on Watt Avenue in Antelope. His girlfriend had kicked him out of their residence the night that May was slain. Authorities said he stole May's car and his ATM card before taking off for his hometown of Salinas and then for Delano, where he was arrested a week after the murder.
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