New cold case task force developed in San Joaquin County
SAN JOAQUIN COUNTY — Leaders in San Joaquin County are looking to help solve hundreds of cold cases with a new strategy.
More than six hundred homicides, missing persons and sexual assault cases that remain unsolved are now at the forefront of a new task force.
Victoria Marquina, 16, went missing more than five years ago. No one is in custody for her disappearance, and her body has yet to be found.
San Joaquin County District Attorney Ron Freitas said that it's cases like Marquina's that are at the top of mind for this new cold case task force.
Marquina's mother, Blanca Valencia, hasn't seen or heard from her daughter since 2019. Marquina, who at 16 already started college, went missing just days before her 17th birthday.
For Valencia, that day is burned in her memory.
"She didn't have a reason to leave the house," she said. "Everything was fine. She went to school. She was working. There wasn't a fight. She left happy like how she always did. There wasn't a why. She didn't come back home."
According to witnesses, Marquina was last seen with a 22-year-old man who was initially arrested in connection to her disappearance. He was later charged with murder in Amador County, but those charges were dropped because her body had not been located.
"Four days later, they found her car abandoned in San Joaquin County, but nothing of her. Nothing," Valencia said.
The Amador County Sheriff's Office had classified Marquina's case as a homicide, but Valencia is still hoping she'll hear a knock at the door.
"I don't have answers to my questions," she said. "But until I see my daughter, or until I see a body, I think there's hope. As her mom, I still have hope she'll come back home one day."
Marquina's case is now in the hands of San Joaquin County investigators because Amador County investigators believe she was killed somewhere in that county.
There are more than 600 cold cases in San Joaquin County that this new task force of deputies and attorneys will work on.
"We owe it to these families to take a fresh look and bring justice to these families," Freitas said.
For Valencia, creating the task force is a step in the right direction.
"Any progress, the smallest progress they make, is hope for me, so they don't leave her case in the archives. If they archive it, the case is finished. No," she said. "This is hope. Of course, this is hope for me."
The cold case task force has already started working.
The task force has received $500,000 of funding from the San Joaquin County Board of Supervisors, which says that next year, they're planning to continue providing funding.
