Sacramento County coroner identifies man and woman killed
A jury convicted a man of first-degree murder in the killing of his parents at their Elk Grove home in 2024.
Mark Navarrete was also found guilty on Friday of carrying out the murders for financial gain, the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office said.
(Earlier coverage in the video above.)
The parents, 70-year-old Marjorie Jane Tomas Navarrete and 73-year-old Augusto Tacsuan Navarrete, were described by neighbors as loving, gentle and kind.
On June 28, 2024, officers went to a home on Crosscourt Way after a person, later identified as Navarrete, reported he could not get in contact with his family, Elk Grove police said at the time. When they entered the home, officers found a man and woman both dead.
Navarrete, then age 44, told officers one of his parents’ vehicles was missing from their garage, police said.
Prosecutors said Navarrete had, in fact, driven a few blocks from his parents’ house, then put on a mask and gloves and rode a kick scooter to his parents’ home.
He met his parents at the backyard door, took them into the garage, and then struck both of them on the head with an object and then strangled them to death, according to the DA’s office.
The DA’s office said he drove away in his parents’ car and then rode his scooter back to his car.
Police eventually found the scooter at Navarrete’s home and a DNA analysis from under his mother’s fingernails was a match to Navarrete.
The DA’s office said Navarrete had been scamming friends and family and resented that his parents had paid back other family members.
Investigators credited surveillance footage from traffic cameras and the use of Flock technology for helping solve the case.
Navarrete faces a possible maximum sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole when sentenced on Nov. 13.
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