Murder suspect arrested in Vegas
Jenaro Torres is wanted in the killing of a Pearl Harbor cashier in 1992
A man wanted for the 1992 murder of a Pearl Harbor Navy exchange cashier is in a downtown Las Vegas jail awaiting extradition to Hawaii.
Jenaro Torres was arrested Tuesday at Nellis Air Force Base by FBI, Air Force and local law enforcement officers. An Oahu grand jury indicted Torres earlier this month for murder in the May 1, 1992, disappearance of Ruben Gallegos.
Torres, 57, was arrested when he went to the Air Force base's Sports and Fitness Center. He had previously lived in Las Vegas, and investigators suspected he might work out at the fitness center to stay in shape. Torres is eligible to use the facility as an Air Force retiree.
When Torres was booked into the Clark County Detention Center, he did not give a local address because he was living in his car, said Detective Jack Clements, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. The car was parked outside the fitness center filled with household items, Clements said.
Torres is scheduled to appear in court Tuesday for an extradition hearing, said Donald Wong, state Department of the Attorney General chief investigator. It was the AG's cold-case unit and naval criminal investigators at Pearl Harbor who were responsible bringing the 13-year-old case to the grand jury for prosecution.
Gallegos, 19, was last seen alive leaving the Pearl Harbor Submarine Base Exchange with Torres, who was a Department of Defense police officer assigned to Pearl Harbor. Torres was not scheduled to work that day, but showed up at Gallegos' cashier cage in uniform and armed with a .38-caliber revolver.
When military police arrested Torres six hours later, he had in his car a handgun, his uniform, an electric stun gun and a bag containing Gallegos' wallet, hairbrush and key to his cashier cage. In the trunk of the car was all but about $2,000 of the $80,000 assigned to Gallegos that day for cashing checks. And investigators determined that the handgun had been recently fired.
Investigators did numerous searches of the Waipio Peninsula but found no trace of Gallegos.
Without his body, federal prosecutors were only able to charge and convict Torres for theft and a firearm violation. He was sentenced to two years in prison, part of which he served in an Oahu halfway house.
Gallegos' body still has not been recovered. State Deputy Attorney General Susan Won said the prosecution can go forward because naval criminal investigators found additional witnesses.
