Prosecutors say Kevin Frank Henriques, 40, still claims the death of his girlfriend, Theresa Cacho, was an accident.
By Jenna Chandler | Email the author | 2:06pm
Parole was denied Tuesday for a Riverside man who strangled to death his girlfriend in the 1990s and dumped her dead body in the Cleveland National Forest.
Kevin Frank Henriques, 40, was convicted by a jury of first degree murder in 1993, and will not be eligible for parole again until 2016. The Orange County District's Attorney Office objected to Henriques' possible release Tuesday, saying the convicted strangler continues to claim that the death of his live-in girlfriend, Theresa Cacho, was an accident.
The D.A. has said that contrary to evidence presented during the trial, including testimony from a friend who said Henriques admitted to the murder, and from an autopsy report proving Cacho was strangled, Henriques still claims Cacho, 20, died after falling and hitting her head.
"Henriques' failure to take responsibility for his crime, lack of remorse, and continuous denial of his guilt demonstrates that he still poses a threat to public safety and the community," the D.A. wrote in a press release.
Investigators linked Henriques to the murder after two hikers discovered her body, partially-decomposed and gagged, on a slope in the national forest.
Prosecutors later proved to a jury that Henriques, then 19-years-old, strangled Cacho by handcuffing her and stuffing socks wrapped in plastic bags into her mouth. The couple had gotten into an argument in their Riverside home before the murder.
When Henriques' roommate Brian Davidson, 18, returned home, Henriques admitted to Davidson that he had murdered Cacho. Henriques and Davidson wrapped the body in a blue blanket and put her in Henriques' car trunk. They then drove to a remote area of the Cleveland National Forest and discarded the body by rolling it down a hill.
A spokeswoman for the D.A.'s Office said she did not have a more precise location of where Cacho's body was found. A Los Angeles Times article published after the discovery reported that Cacho's body was found at the bottom of an embankment about 4 ½ miles from Ortega Highway.
In February 1993, Henriques was convicted by a jury of first degree murder, but a judge reduced the conviction to second degree murder and sentenced Henriques to 15 years to life in state prison. According to the D.A., if Henriques had been sentenced to 25 years to life in state prison based on the jury's first degree murder conviction, he would not have yet been eligible for parole Tuesday.
Henriques is currently being held at Avenal State Prison.
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