The labor contractor whose ledger of workers became a list of 25 murder victims.

Countries & Cities · Published 15 October 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: In 1971, authorities in California discovered 25 bodies buried in peach orchards along the Feather River. The investigation centered on Juan Corona, a licensed labor contractor who had hired the victims. His work ledger, containing names and dates, became the prosecution's primary evidence in a landmark serial murder case.

Juan Corona, born in 1934 in Mexico, moved to the United States in 1950. By the early 1970s, he was working as a labor contractor in Sutter County, California, where he supplied workers to local ranches. In May 1971, a farm owner discovered a freshly dug hole in his peach orchard containing a body. Subsequent searches revealed a total of 25 male victims, all transient laborers who had been stabbed or slashed. The discovery of meat receipts and bank deposit slips bearing Corona's name in the graves provided critical circumstantial evidence, leading to his arrest.

The legal proceedings were complex and protracted. In his first 1973 trial, Corona was convicted on 25 counts of first-degree murder. However, an appellate court overturned this conviction in 1978, citing incompetent legal representation—specifically, the defense attorney’s decision to trade the defendant's literary rights for legal fees, which created a conflict of interest. A second trial in 1982 also resulted in a guilty verdict on all counts. Throughout the process, the defense attempted to shift blame to Corona's brother, Natividad, but the jury remained unconvinced, largely due to the incriminating nature of the work ledger found in Corona's home.

Corona spent the remainder of his life in the California prison system. His incarceration was marked by violence, including a 1973 attack in which he was stabbed 32 times, resulting in the loss of his left eye. Over the decades, he faced multiple parole hearings, during which his accounts of the crimes fluctuated; he admitted to the murders in 2011, claiming the victims were trespassing, but later denied memory of the events in 2016. He died of natural causes in 2019 at the age of 85 while serving his sentence at Corcoran State Prison.

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