Background: The Dinuba Police Department in Dinuba, Calif. (Google Maps). Inset: Miguel Angel Saldana (Dinuba Police Department).
Police said a California man who fatally shot his ex-wife and her new boyfriend committed a "crime of passion."
Miguel Angel Saldana, 43, was arrested by the Dinuba Police Department this week and formally charged with two counts of murder on Wednesday. According to police, Saldana fatally shot his ex-wife, 39-year-old Irai Torres, and her boyfriend, 51-year-old Jose Medina, on Tuesday during a confrontation at a home in Dinuba, California, located in the state's Central Valley region. In an interview with local NBC and CBS affiliate KSEE/KPGE, Dinuba Police Chief Abel Iriarte said Saldana "lost [his] temper" when he gunned down Medina and Torres, with whom he shared a child.
Details about what occurred at the home where police said Torres and Medina were killed were not made public. Iriarte said after the shooting, Saldana fled the scene in a white Toyota truck and went back to his home in Reedley, California, where he switched vehicles and returned to Dinuba.
Iriarte said multiple 911 calls were made after the shooting, which allegedly happened at 5:10 p.m. When police responded to the home, Torres and Medina were already dead.
A few hours after the shooting, police tracked Saldana down near the Dinuba Police Department where he was arrested without incident. After being booked into jail without bail, he was charged with two counts of murder with special allegations for multiple murders, discharging a firearm, planning the crime, and violent conduct. He pleaded not guilty on Thursday and is scheduled to appear in court again on May 4.
Iriarte told KSEE/KPGE that "based on what I'm seeing or hearing, is that it was passion. It was a crime of passion, lost temper, via an argument, and it resulted in a travesty." He told the station that the investigation is ongoing.
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