Sacramento Man Found Guilty Of His Child's Mother's Murder

A jury has found a Sacramento man guilty of first-degree murder and arson for killing the mother of his child and then setting her body on fire in San Francisco in 2011, prosecutors said today.

Almon Johnson, 33, set Vanessa Herrera’s body on fire in the early morning hours of Jan. 24, 2011, at Rose and Webster streets in the Hayes Valley neighborhood, according to the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office. Police discovered Herrera’s body in the right front seat of her car after firefighters extinguished the fire, prosecutors said. Police arrested Johnson later that evening, prosecutors said.

Herrera, 23, was a preschool teacher and the pair’s child was seven months old, prosecutors said.

“That day changed my life forever,” Herrera’s mother Pam Rodriguez said.

Vanessa was the youngest of Rodriguez’s four children. Rodriguez said she encourages anyone suffering from domestic violence to seek help and get out. Herrera suffered from numerous incidents of domestic violence at the hands of Johnson, including one in August 2010 in which police arrested and jailed him for a parole violation for physically abusing Herrera and the child, prosecutors said.

But her daughter was a “loving and caring person,” Rodriguez said. “She saw the good in everyone. She saw the good in him.”

Johnson admitted in letters to Herrera from jail that he abused her, according to prosecutors.

“This is an incredibly tragic death that reminds us that domestic violence is a cycle,” District Attorney George Gascon said in a statement. “I cannot stress enough the importance of early intervention.”

Shortly after crews extinguished the car fire, Sacramento police informed San Francisco police that Herrera did not come home the night before, according to prosecutors. In the course of their investigation, San Francisco police found a witness who said Johnson set Herrera’s car on fire, prosecutors said.

A witness at Johnson’s trial testified seeing Johnson drive the car into Rose Alley, put a gas can in the driver’s seat and strike a match, and flames then engulfed the car, prosecutors said.

Johnson killed Herrera by strangulation and then drove her body around, first to his mother’s house, then to his cousin’s house where he picked up the gas can and a yellow blanket, prosecutors said. Johnson used the blanket to cover Herrera’s body, according to prosecutors.

Then he went to a gas station to buy gas and left for San Francisco, where he poured gas throughout the car’s interior before setting it aflame, prosecutors said. Rodriguez said two of her daughter’s friends have now left abusive relationships and one is doing very well. She’s encouraging young women to love themselves by not letting others hurt them.

She said she hopes her daughter’s death will save the lives of others. Johnson is scheduled for sentencing on Sept. 21.

--Bay City News

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