Allison Gatlin

The Salinas Californian

EDITOR'S NOTE: Important developments are being announced in the Christy Sue Piña case. Follow The Californian's reporting here.

Once abruptly white, the papers are now yellowed with age, creased throughout and fraying at the edges. They're soft with smudged ink blurred by the decades. It's as if they've been handled hundreds of times. Thousands, maybe. And that's fair, because they probably have been.

But Juan "John" Piña handles them expertly — delicately, even.

A report card here. A letter there. "Here's a poem she wrote." Then, in stark contrast, there are police reports and court filings accounting for a macabre murder. Finally, an obituary.

A life encapsulated in a black binder — and far too soon.

Christy Sue Piña was barely 14 years old when she was found nude and dead in a Castroville artichoke field. Monterey County sheriff's deputies reportedly found a chloroform-soaked rag next to her ravaged body. That was Feb. 8, 1990. Piña says he knows his daughter's killer. Local prosecutors say they do too.

And now that he's in custody, law enforcement is one step closer to wrapping up the case.

'Like a chameleon'

Christy was one of 32 homicide victims in 1990 in Monterey County. After 25 years, her case is so cold, Piña calls it "a freezer case."

His daughter was "an outstanding student," Piña says. In 1990, she was attending eighth grade at Greenfield Union School. She aspired to become a journalist.

Teachers found Chris — her school nickname — to be "exceptionally creative and talented." Christy was enrolled in GATE, an accelerated learning program. After her death, seven teachers involved in the seventh- and eighth-grade programs recalled Christy in a letter.

"We were stunned by her degree of openness," they wrote. "She was often very forthcoming about her life. She contributed to an atmosphere of acceptance and honesty in our group."

A yearbook photo taken the year before her death shows a smiling girl, maybe a little small for her age, wearing in a teal blouse. A peppermint-colored headband pushed most of her hair from her face but she wore her bangs feathered, as was the style in the late '80s and early '90s.

Piña carries a more recent picture in his wallet. In it, Christy smiles at an un-pictured person, just above the camera's lens.

Christy was a chameleon, her teachers said, and "deeply troubled."

"We were never quite sure who she really was," the teachers recalled. "The exterior was bright and cheerful, while the interior was dark and inaccessible, even to those of us who knew her well."

Piña would also use that word — chameleon.

"Something happened to her," Piña says. "I can't pinpoint it but something happened to her, and she could not stay in Greenfield anymore."

Shortly before her death, Christy ran away twice to Salinas, Piña says. Carla Piña, Piña's ex-wife and Christy's mother, lived in Salinas at the time. Christy lived with Piña, his second wife, Christina Piña, and two of her brothers.

Piña says he never found out led Christy to become so erratic. It wasn't a conflict with her step-mother — "they had a good relationship." He described Christy's personality in the weeks leading up to her death as "flip switched."

"They never really could pinpoint her," he says. "Her mood swings. It started going from one thing to another. ... She was like a chameleon."

February 1990

Piña has the laid-back personality you'd expect of a 40-year truck driver. He retired several years ago from a career hauling lumber, strangely on the same date Christina Piña died.

Before his retirement he would pass through King City, where Christy is buried, and beckon her spirit on adventures with him.

"I'd say, 'Come on, we're going now,'" he recalled.

Christy loved that cemetery, he explained.

In early February 1990, Piña was on one of his many road trips in Victoria, British Columbia.

"I woke up out of a dead sleep and I called back here," he says. "I told her step-mother to check on the kids. Everybody was accounted for except for Christy."

It wasn't the first time Christy had run away. Even straight-A students like Christy can experience mental-health crises, Piña says. Before her death, Piña said he tried in vain to have her hospitalized after finding razor blades in her room.

"The system failed her," Piña says. "They said, 'She's a teenager, there's nothing we can do.'"

California Welfare and Institutions Code 5150 allows for children and adults, alike, to be held for a 72-hour psychiatric evaluation. Piña said he isn't sure why Christy wasn't deemed eligible.

When Christy disappeared, Christina Piña went into "search mode," Piña said. The couple received word a school counselor dropped her off in Salinas. But, from there, Christy was always seemingly out of reach.

"She (Christina) was just an hour behind [Christy] wherever she was," Piña recalled.

An artichoke field

On Feb. 8, 1990, a farm worker was cutting artichokes in a Castroville field just off Highway 1 when he tripped over and fell on a badly decomposed body.

The man may have, in fact, suffered a heart attack, Piña said. He's not sure. Either way, the worker survived.

Sheriff's deputies' reports describe a horrifying scene in the midst of the artichokes where they found the girl's body. She had been strangled with a cloth and stabbed repeatedly. But, before she died, the girl had been raped and sodomized.

"When that came out on the news, [my wife] called the Sheriff's Department," Piña remembered.

That was Thursday. Saturday night, Piña opened the door to representatives of the Sheriff's Office. They confirmed what Piña already suspected.

"They came about 11 o'clock or so at night," he said, knocking three times on the table. "Opened the door to let us know it was Christy."

It was the same parental intuition that awoke him from a dead sleep several days beforehand more than 1,000 miles away in Victoria.

"I already knew; we sensed it. I was already grieving," he says. "I don't know how. ... I just knew it was her, as a parent."

Piña still isn't sure whether Christy had defensive wounds indicating she fought her attacker.

"I never really asked, I never really wanted to know if she had defensive wounds on her or not," he said. "I'm afraid."

Sheriff's deputies didn't find any drugs, alcohol or cigarettes at the scene. But they found a chloroform-soaked rag, Piña says. That detail, however, isn't included in any public document.

They also found DNA.

Mounting evidence

DNA evidence pegged 52-year-old Arsenio "Archie" Pacheco Leyva as the suspect in Christy's death in 2003, Piña says. In 1996, a federal judge signed a warrant for Leyva for two counts of unlawful flight to avoid prosecution, court records show. But a state arrest warrant for Leyva in Christy's murder wasn't issued until Sept. 7, 2007.

Piña said law enforcement officials urged him to keep Leyva's name under wraps.

"I was told never to mention his name," Piña said. But Christy's death was no local mystery, he said.

"People would come to me, they'd tell me, 'Oh yeah, we know who killed your daughter,'" Piña recalled. Friends, family and Greenfield acquaintances also claimed Leyva killed Christy, Piña added.

In 1990, Leyva had family in Salinas, Castroville and Fresno, Piña said.

For years, Piña said he acquiesced to law enforcement wishes and didn't mention Leyva's name. Several years ago, however, he discovered an arrest warrant had been issued, identifying Leyva as Christy's alleged killer.

The case is still under investigation and because of that the Sheriff's Office can't comment, Cmdr. John Thornburg said.

The $5 million first-degree murder arrest warrant for Christy's killing isn't the only warrant calling for Leyva's arrest.

In September 1993, Leyva allegedly attempted to kidnap a 12-year-old girl in Salinas. There's still a $5,000 warrant out in that case.

Leyva is also on probation for battering a police officer, said Berkley Brannon, chief assistant district attorney for Monterey County.

In 1988, Leyva was charged with raping two girls in July 1987, according to a complaint filed in Monterey County Superior Court. Piña provided The Californian with a copy of the complaint.

Within the complaint, Leyva is accused of raping two girls with a foreign object. Piña says the girls were 14 years old, but the complaint doesn't identify their ages.

Leyva ultimately pleaded guilty to two counts of having unlawful sex with a minor. He was sentenced to 300 days in jail and three years' probation, Brannon said.

Monterey County Superior Court records also list six misdemeanor cases filed against Leyva between 1992 and 1993. However, the complete records have long since been purged in accordance with state law.

A wanted poster for him in 1993 called Leyva a self-described "lady's man" [sic]. It also identified seven potential aliases for him including "Rogelio Pacheco Ibarra."

Treaty of Vienna

Now, Piña believes his daughter's killer is in Mexico. Mexican court records confirm what local prosecutors can't — Leyva has been detained in the neighboring country and is vehemently fighting his extradition to the United States.

Leyva's case has come up seven times between February and April this year in First Circuit Court of the Mexican Federal District Court. He is seeking "amparo principal" or "un jucio de amparo." Translated to English, Leyva is asking the Mexican government to protect his constitutional rights.

Involved authorities include the Mexican government and the United States president — under whose authority the U.S. Department of Justice can request the extradition. Brannon, however, said he couldn't comment on the extradition process beyond the DA's Office involvement.

That involvement began March 4, 2008, when prosecutors unsealed Leyva's arrest warrant to share that information with the FBI, the DOJ and "any other foreign government with jurisdiction over the defendant." Leyva's arrest warrant was first issued Sept. 7, 2007. It was signed by Monterey County Superior Court Judge Albert Maldonado.

Six months later, Terry Spitz, now retired from his post as chief assistant district attorney, signed the paperwork altering the warrant seal. At the time, Spitz was in charge of preparing extradition requests, Brannon said. To lawfully complete an extradition, the United States must comply with the Treaty of Vienna, which guides the extradition agreement between American and Mexican authorities.

The required documentation — resulting in an extradition packet — is exhaustive, Brannon said. From the DA's Office, the packet goes to the US DOJ. DOJ translators than make the content available in Spanish before sending it to Mexican authorities. The federal DOJ then seeks an arrest warrant in accordance with the treaty, Brannon said.

"We have to have declarations from witnesses, you can't just submit police reports," Brannon said. "Then the warrant would go out and he would be extraditable on the warrant."

He added, "It's the materials the Mexican authorities use to see that we have a viable case."

If the evidence is hefty enough, the US DOJ will issue a provisional warrant, available for service in Mexico. Brannon said he couldn't comment on the process beyond that other than to say Monterey County prosecutors definitely want Leyva returned to United States' custody.

"That was our goal in submitting the packet to the DOJ," he said. "We hope to see him back here sooner rather than later."

FBI officials declined comment, citing the ongoing investigation.

Loren Cruz Sandoval, a media representative for the Mexican Consulate in San Jose, couldn't find any record indicating the consulate is working with Leyva or his family. The digital record-keeping system was updated several years ago, she explained.

"We used to have another system," she said. "Back then, a lot of it (the records) was written or scanned."

An email to the Mexican Embassy, via Sandoval, wasn't returned by deadline.

Black binders

Piña says he isn't a religious man. But he still finds Christy in the little things.

Sometimes, it's a forgotten penny. Maybe the coin fell out of someone's pocket. Maybe it tumbled from a passing vehicle. It doesn't even have to be a penny. Occasionally, Piña picks up nickels, dimes and quarters. Whatever the change, Piña is sure it's from Christy.

Just a reminder, he says. And one of many.

What happened to his daughter wasn't her fault, Piña said. It's her killer's fault, Piña said, that he didn't see Christy grow up. Piña was 38 years old when his 14-year-old daughter disappeared in 1990. Her birthday was Jan. 15. She would have been 39 this year.

"She just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time," he said. "This guy just snatched her up."

Piña keeps his cool, in his own mellow way. But the 63-year-old said he still has his moments. When he's passing through King City or working on a Greenfield winery, it hits.

"I missed her wedding, I missed her graduation from high school, maybe college. Everything," he said. "Some place in Boston was already interested in her."

Piña said he's not ready to forgive the man he believes to be his daughter's killer.

"There's no telling how many he's hurt over wherever he's at," Piña said. "He's not going to stop."

Ultimately, Piña said, all he has now are questions. Will his daughter's murderer face justice in his lifetime? Is he still, as prosecutors tell him, living in Mexico? And how many other black binders, like Christy's, has her killer left in his wake?

Follow Allison Gatlin on Twitter @allison_salnews #salinas.