Four men sentenced to 16 years for 2012 Long Beach murder and kidnapping

Four men were sentenced Aug. 12 to 16 years to life in state prison for attacking a man in Riverside, kidnapping him, and killing  him in Long Beach, according to the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office. 

On July 25, a jury found Jose Duenas, 23; Christopher Arevalo Ramirez, 24; Rafael Antonio Portales, 25; and Rafael Bravo, 25, guilty of second-degree murder and kidnapping.

The victim, Hector Campos Jauregui,  24, was an acquaintance of Duenas, Ramirez, and Bravo, prosecutors said. On Sept. 7, 2012, Jauregui was at a Mira Loma home, in Riverside County, with Duenas, Ramirez and Bravo. Sometime that day, Jauregui was shot in the back of the head and hit in the head with a sledgehammer. 

According to a witness, Duenas and Ramirez then beat the injured Jauregui in the middle of the street, put him in a car, and drove to Long Beach. Bravo dumped Jauregui’s truck in Pomona, according to prosecutors. 

Duenas and Ramirez, along with the injured Jauregui, went to the Long Beach apartment building where Portales was staying. Duenas, Ramirez, and Portales then talked to Jauregui before beating him again. Duenas also strangled Jauregui with a shirt, prosecutors said. 

According to witness testimony, Jauregui went limp, and the three men beat him further before putting his body in a vehicle's trunk. Ramirez and Portales drove to an alley, pulled Campos out of the trunk, shot him in the head and left, prosecutors said. 

The person who saw the strangling wrote down Ramirez’s license plate number and called police, prosecutors said. Authorities pulled over and arrested Ramirez and Portales, who had Jauregui's blood on them. Duenas was arrested in Long Beach.

Meanwhile, a woman walking through a Long Beach alley found Jauregui and called 911. Jauregui was taken to a hospital where he died the next day, according to Los Angeles County coroner's records. 

Authorities later received a tip that Bravo was cleaning up the crime scene in Mira Loma, prosecutors said. Police arrested him there.

Contact the Homicide Report. Follow @jeromercampbell and @latimeshomicide on Twitter.