DNA testing leads to ID of victim of 2009 Irvine killing, a missing Nevada teen

A teenage girl who was strangled then dumped in Irvine and set on fire nearly 15 years ago has been identified, police said Thursday.

The victim was identified as 14-year-old Marcia Shirree Thomas, who was reported missing out of Reno, Nev., police said.

“The Irvine Police Department has been committed to this case since 2009,” Irvine Police Chief Michael Kent said in a statement. “Marcia’s family remains in our thoughts during this difficult time. We appreciate the agencies that have assisted in providing crucial information to support the case and the family.”

Authorities managed to identify the victim through DNA tests, police said. One of the defendants in the case, Gabino Baldivia-Guzman, recently went on trial for the Sept. 5, 2009, killing, but jurors deadlocked 11-1 for guilt, and he will go on trial again at a future date.

His brother, 38-year-old Zenaido Baldivia-Guzman, was convicted Nov. 15, 2022, and was sentenced in April of last year to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Zenaido Baldivia-Guzman was previously tried in 2016, but it ended in a mistrial when jurors deadlocked 11-1 in favor of guilt on the first-degree murder charge.

Zenaido Baldivia-Guzman killed the victim, while his brother is suspected of helping dispose of the body, according to prosecutors.

The body was found in the parking lot of a business at 1851 Kettering Street in Irvine, where an employee heading into work spotted it, according to former Senior Deputy Dist. Atty. Robert Goodkin, who is now an Orange County Superior Court judge. The victim did not have any personal effects on her, but she appeared to be in her 20s and was about 6 feet tall and weighed 150 pounds.

According to a trial brief filed last month in Gabino Baldivia-Guzman’s case, Senior Deputy Dist. Atty. Harris Siddiq said investigators suspected the victim was in her early 20s.

The case went unsolved for 14 months until genetic material collected from the victim’s left hand matched the DNA of Zenaido Baldivia-Guzman, who had provided a genetic sample to resolve a misdemeanor domestic violence case in which he choked his girlfriend and threw her 9-year-old son against a wall when he tried to intervene, Goodkin wrote in court papers.

Irvine police placed the brothers under surveillance and arrested them following a traffic stop in November 2010, Goodkin said. Zenaido Baldivia-Guzman initially told police he knew nothing about a murder and then said he was too drunk at the time of the incident to remember, Goodkin said.

When confronted with evidence, he “admitted certain things,” Goodkin said in his opening statement of the trial.

The two brothers picked up the victim in a high-prostitution area of Santa Ana at First Street and Harbor Boulevard the night of Sept. 4, 2009, Goodkin said.

“The evidence will show you [the defendant] was hiding in the back of the van and she doesn’t see him,” Goodkin said.

When the victim noticed Zenaido Baldivia-Guzman in the back of the van, while the defendant’s brother was driving, she, “starts screaming, ‘Let me out of this van,’” Goodkin said. “She doesn’t want to be in a van with two guys. That wasn’t part of the deal.”

The defendant pulled her into the back of the van as she shouted for help, Goodkin said. As she fought back, the defendant “hits her in the face and hits her hard,” Goodkin said, adding, “he hits her till she’s quiet.”

The defendant admitted that he “squeezed a little bit” around her neck, but evidence shows the victim was strangled, Goodkin said.

“She didn’t die from blunt force trauma to the face,” the prosecutor said.

The brothers drove around for about 90 minutes before settling on a secluded place in an industrial area of Irvine to dump the body, Goodkin said.

The two brothers, who were in the auto detailing business, had gasoline in the van that Gabino Baldivia-Guzman allegedly used to help ignite the body, the prosecutor said.

“There was no soot in her lungs,” indicating that the victim was already dead when she was set afire, Goodkin said.

Zenaido Baldivia-Guzman also wrote a letter of apology to the family, which is a common tactic by police to solicit a confession.