Lake County family members arrested in fatal Sonoma County shooting

Sonoma County sheriff’s detectives Saturday arrested three Lake County family members - a husband and wife and her son - on suspicion of killing the woman’s longtime lover, whose body was found Friday near an abandoned van on a remote Sonoma County road.

Detectives suspect Maria Guadalupe Torres, 40, of Clearlake, double-crossed the man she had been having an affair with for years by arranging the deadly encounter with her family at a pullout along remote Porter Creek Road, northeast of Santa Rosa, Sgt. Spencer Crum said.

The man, in his mid-30s, was shot and left for dead sometime before dawn Friday, Crum said. He hasn’t been identified while authorities attempt to notify his family.

Torres, her husband, Rene Espinoza Martinez, Sr., 40, and her son, Rene Espinoza Martinez, Jr., 20, were booked Saturday into the Sonoma County Jail on suspicion of murder and conspiracy. Crum declined to say who they suspect pulled the trigger.

“We believe (Torres) is the primary suspect and she acted in concert with husband and son to commit this murder,” Crum said.

The three were arrested together Saturday at a Lake County home.

The investigation began about 7:40 a.m. Friday when a Toyota Previa van was spotted parked on a dirt turnout along eastbound Porter Creek Road across from the Mark West Quarry.

The van’s front windows were shot out. It was riddled with what appeared to be bullet holes and there was blood inside.

An officer and sergeant found the man’s body down a steep embankment. It appeared he was shot inside the van and tried to flee, then fell down the steep drop-off, Crum said.

Around that time, investigators learned a shooting victim from Lake County was being flown by air ambulance to a Santa Rosa hospital, and they assigned a team to determine if the cases were related. They eventually ruled out any connection.

But items found inside the van sent detectives to a Santa Rosa motel where they used check-in information and surveillance video to identify Torres as a potential suspect, Crum said.

Through interviews with the suspects and other evidence, detectives came to suspect Torres’ husband and son recently discovered the affair and were opposed to it. The affair was a “yearslong relationship,” according to Crum.

Torres, who works in Santa Rosa, had stayed with her lover at the unidentified motel and arranged to have her family follow them early Friday as they were driving back toward Lake County, Crum said.

“We don’t think the victim knew he was being followed or set up,” Crum said.

The unidentified man was driving when they pulled off Porter Creek Road and parked on the dirt turnout in the sparsely populated and forested area. Porter Creek Road is a busy route through the mountains between Santa Rosa and Calistoga, and it connects to a main route to Lake County.

Torres got out of the van and stepped away as the Martinez men pulled up alongside, and someone fired a gun from that vehicle into the van, according to Crum.

The man was hit by the gunfire - authorities haven’t yet said how many times or where - and fled out the passenger side door, running toward the ravine and tumbling down the cliff, Crum said. He declined to say what kind of gun was used.

Torres then fled with her husband and son to Lake County, according to the Sheriff’s Office.

On Saturday morning, sheriff’s detectives traveled to Lake County and found Torres and both Martinez men at a residence there. Crum declined to give an exact location or say whether it was the Torres’ home.

“We don’t believe that this was going to be an argument, or a confrontation about an affair,” Crum said. “We believe she knew this shooting was going to happen, and that’s why she got out of the van and got away.”

You can reach Staff Writer Julie Johnson at 707-521-5220 or julie.johnson@pressdemocrat.com. ?On Twitter @jjpressdem.