Double Killer's Mistake: He Spit on a Sidewalk

Geovanni Borjas pleads no contest to raping, killing Michelle Lozano and Bree'Anna Guzman
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted May 31, 2017 9:45 AM CDT
Updated Nov 1, 2022 10:35 AM CDT
Spit on Sidewalk Leads Cops to Alleged Killer
Geovanni Borjas.   (Los Angeles Police Department via AP)

Update: Walking along a California street, Geovanni Borjas did the seemingly innocuous: He spit on a sidewalk. But it wasn't innocuous at all for the killer, whose spit matched DNA on two murder victims. On Monday, the 38-year-old pleaded no contest to the first-degree murders and forcible rapes of 17-year-old Michelle Lozano and 22-year-old Bree'Anna Guzman, whose bodies were dumped off freeways, per City News Service. "Mr. Borjas finally took account for his heinous actions and is expected to spend the rest of his life in prison," said Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon, who ended new death-penalty prosecutions, per NBC News. Last year, Guzman's mother said the move was a "slap in the face" to the families, per CNS. Sentencing is set for Dec. 12. Our original story from May 2017 follows:

For more than five years, a killer has been on the loose in California. No longer, say police. Authorities in Los Angeles say they've arrested a man believed to have raped and killed two women, then dumped their bodies near freeways in 2011, reports the Los Angeles Times. Michelle Lozano, 17, disappeared on Easter of that year before her naked body was found stuffed in a plastic container off a freeway. She had been raped and strangled, reports the Times. Then a day after Christmas, 22-year-old Bree'Anna Guzman—who lived less than a mile away from Lozano in Lincoln Heights—left family members to go to a drugstore and never returned. Her body turned up a month later off a freeway. She had died of blunt force trauma to the head.

In 2014, police announced the killings were related, but the biggest break in the case came Thursday, when authorities said they'd arrested Geovanni Borjas, 32, per FOX 11. Police say a search of a statewide DNA database showed Borjas' father was a relative of the killer. Officers soon eyed Borjas—who has a domestic violence restraining order against him—and collected his DNA when he spit on a sidewalk. Police say the sample was an exact match to DNA collected in both the case of Lozano, who was acquainted with Borjas, and Guzman, who visited a medical clinic where he worked. At a hearing Tuesday, Borjas pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder, two counts of rape, and one count of kidnapping. He is being held without bail. (Familial DNA solved this murder.)

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