What was originally believed to be the shooting death of a woman during a purse snatching gone awry at the Burger Point restaurant on Mill Avenue about five minutes before noon on January 10 was actually an elaborate murder for hire commissioned by the dead woman’s husband, the San Bernardino Police Department revealed on Tuesday.
At a news conference held at the San Bernardino Police Department on February 18, San Bernardino Police Chief Darren Goodman, together with the lead investigator on the case, Detective Dominick Martinez, and District Attorney Jason Anderson revealed the series of events by which authorities were able to determine in short order that the killing of Yesenia “Jessica” Torres, a successful businesswoman from Highland with assets valued in the eight figures was not a random robbery but the work of her husband and four accomplices he had employed to knock her off to further his financial interests in the midst of a bitter divorce.
On January 10, it was reported that a woman, later identified as Torres, was shot and killed by an armed male who had forcefully taken her purse as she was getting into her vehicle, a late model Mercedes Benz, parked in front of the restaurant located at 444 W. Mill Street in San Bernardino at about 11:55 a.m.
Paramedics were summoned and they pronounced the victim dead at the scene shortly after noon.
It was reported at the time that the suspect had fled by foot and homicide investigators were investigating the incident, which was being compared to a similar occurrence at the McDonalds on Second Street in downtown San Bernardino on January 2.
Within minutes of arriving on the scene, investigators discovered who Torres was.
“Jessica was a businesswoman in our community,” Police Chief Darren Goodman said, “She was well-known and well-respected by many. She was very civically engaged and supported numerous endeavors throughout the city.”
It was learned that she was married to Sergio Reveles and that they jointly owned property at various location in Southern California. Included in the property were medical officers in San Bernardino and a pallet company operated by Juan Perez and owned by Reveles. It was discovered that on February 16, 2023, Reveles had filed for divorce, that the case was being heard by Judge Michael Gassner and that thereafter the couple were no longer cohabiting, as the proceedings had devolved in a bitter fight over the division of assets, with court-ordered efforts at mediation failing. Torres had an established domicile in Highland and Reveles was living in Yucaipa.
Very early in the investigation, according to Martinez, the police caught two breaks.
First, the Burger Point had security cameras, one of which was positioned perfectly to capture Torres’ killing.
Martinez played a portion of that video, which depicted Torres, roughly three seconds into the one minute and 19 second video, leaving the restaurant about 11:55 a.m. and walking to her silver-blue Mercedes Benz SUV, parked almost directly in front of the short walkway leading to the restaurant’s entrance. As Torres is approaching her vehicle, at roughly between ten seconds and 18 seconds into the video, a dark-colored Ford Escape, which was being driven by a man later determined to be Arnaldo Ruelas, 54, of Los Angeles and which had been parked in a stall between the restaurant’s drive-thru entrance and a dumpster enclosure, moves forward into a position behind the parked Mercedes and comes to a halt. Twenty seconds into the video, a man police subsequently identified as Gerardo Llamas Torres, 31, of Bakersfield, gets out of the front passenger side and approaching Torres as she is getting into place behind the wheel of the Mercedes.
The video shows Llamas Torres, who is no blood relation to Torres, is armed with a long-barreled handgun. According to the police department, the barrel extension was a silencer. On the video, Llamas Torres, with the gun in his right hand, can be seen engaged with Torres for approximately 11 seconds – from 24 seconds into the video until 35 seconds into the video – as she is seated in her vehicle. Simultaneously, the video footage captures another man, who had come out of his pickup truck, which was parked next to Torres’ Mercedes, get out of his truck and place a hat upon his head and then walk toward the back of his vehicle. That man’s nearby presence, roughly eight to ten feet away from where Llamas Torres is standing proximate to the open door of Torres’s Mercedes, appears to have temporarily stymied Llamas Torres, who, the video shows, is pressing himself very close to Torres until the man walks behind his vehicle. At the 35 second mark into the video what appears to be a muzzle flash is seen and Llamas Torres then reaches with his left hand to pull Torres’s purse away from the interior of the Mercedes and is slowly backing away from Torres at the 38 through 40 second point on the video. Llamas Torres does not seem intent, as would seem logical at that point, to hurriedly get away with the purse in his possession, but slowly steps backward. Torres, forcefully and with purpose, emerges from the Mercedes at the 42 second point on the video and boldly reaches toward Llamas Torres in an effort to grab his gun, trying to pull it from Llamas Torres’s hand. As this is occurring, Ruelas begins to drive the Escape forward, slowly, as Torres and Llamas Torres grapple with one another. The Escape moves out of the video camera’s field of view as Torres takes hold of Llamas Torres’s arm and they move toward the back of the pickup truck parked adjacent to the Mercedes. At the 48 second point, it appears that Llamas Torres swings Torres’s purse at the back of her head in an effort to move her away from him. Llamas Torres and Torres continue to grapple for the purse and gun or both at the side of the pickup truck until, 52 seconds into the video, a bearded man in dark pants, shirt and baseball hat emerges from the restaurant exit and begins to run in their direction in what looks to be an effort to assist Torres. That man’s approach, however, appears to galvanize Llamas Torres, who at the 54 second mark pulls away from Torres with both the gun and purse in his possession. Torres and her would-be rescuer, now confronted with Llamas Torres and his unfettered control of the gun which he is pointing in their direction, turn to take flight. The man, prudently it seems, runs to the sidewalk and sprints in a straight line as far from the scene of the altercation as he can, having put a good deal of distance – roughly 35 feet – between him and Llamas Torres by second 59 on the video and then has moved well over 50 feet away from Llamas Torres and gone around the building and out of the video camera’s field of view by 1:02 into the video. Meanwhile, Torres has made an effort to run first to the front and then the side of her Mercedes to shield herself from potentially being shot. Llamas Torres, at that point having successfully stood her off, however, does not himself make his getaway, but, positioned on the driver’s side of the Mercedes at the one minute mark into the video begins to stalk Torres, who is now seeking refuge on the passenger side of the Mercedes. At the 1:01 mark on the video, Llamas Torres feigns going to his right and behind the Mercedes to pursue her and then, at 1:02, feigns going left, then, beginning at 1:03 into the video makes a series of right, left, righ, left studder steps until at 1:09 he goes to his right around to the back of the Mercedes and to the passenger side, obliging Torres to flee toward the front of the Mercedes and then to the driver’s side. By 1:14, Llamas Torres has come all the way around the Mercedes to the driver’s side and he at that pointis in full pursuit of Torres, who tears around to the back of the vehicle and agains finds herself on the passenger side. At 1:16, Llamas Torres has reached the passenger side himself, at which point he has a direct bead on Torres. She tilts full speed forward the length of the Mercedes and is making a desperate dash toward the exit/entrance to the restaurant when at 1:19 he is taking aim at her back as she is fleeing from him and the video ends.
The Sentinel is informed that at that point, Llamas Torres shot Torres in the back and then walked in closer to her and dispatched her with another, fatal, shot.
According to Martinez, Llamas Torres fired nine rounds during the attack.
The second break investigators had on the case was that a witness was able to get the license plate number of the Escape as well as a reasonably accurate description of gunman and the driver of the Escape.
Police found the Ford Escape abandoned in a Walmart parking lot in San Bernardino. By looking at footage from surveillance cameras at that location, investigators, after the fact, saw Llamas and Ruelas get into another vehicle and go to a business, where they changed their clothing before leaving.
Martinez said, “Later on, during the investigation, we located this SUV [the Escape], being the suspect SUV, abandoned on the east side of town. In that vehicle there was evidence leading us to additional suspects.”
Within four hours of the shooting, Llamas Torres and Reulas had been identified, at which point a positive link to Reveles was established. From that point on, the other pieces of the puzzle practically assembled themselves.
Martinez and the detectives he was working with found that Arnoldo Ruelas’s brother, Reynaldo Ruelas, 37 of Los Angeles, worked with Juan Perez, 42 of Riverside, who ran Sergio’s Pallets in San Bernardino, a company created by Sergio Revelas and owned by him jointly with his wife.
The San Bernardino Police Department then coordinated with the FBI’s Inland Regional Apprehension Team, the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department, the Bakersfield Police Department Violent Criminal Apprehension Team, and the California Highway Patrol. On January 16, investigators arrested Llamas Torres and Arnaldo Ruelas. On February 13, Reveles, Perez and Reynaldo Ruelas. According to Martinez, when Revelas began talking about killing his wife, Reynaldo Ruelas said he would talk to his brother about someone who could do the hit. Arnaldo Ruelas contacted Llamas Torres, whom he knew to be a trigger man.
For several weeks, Arnaldo Ruelas and Llamas Torres, had traveled to the San Bernardino area from their respective homes in Los Angeles and Bakersfield, to surveil Torres and determine her normal routine. On the moring of January 10 the had trailed her from her HIghland home to a business to the Burger Point, according to Martinez.
Llamas had staged the killing to similate a random robbery, according to Martinez.
According to the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office, “Detectives determined that Torres’ murder had been discussed for over a year, motivated by a contentious divorce between Torres and Reveles, who were involved in a dispute over the division of multi-million-dollar assets.”
The district attorney’s office stated that “On February 6, 2025, SBPD, in coordination with the FBI, California Highway Patrol, the San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department, and the Riverside Sheriff’s Department, conducted a seven-location operation in San Bernardino and Riverside counties. Search warrants were executed at the homes and business properties of both Reveles and Perez. At the completion of the search warrants, investigators seized over $286,000 in cash and multiple firearms.”
The San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office has formally charged all five alleged suspects, with PC 187 – murder, for the death of Yesenia Torres.
According to the district attorney’s office, “Additionally, after review of the evidence received, prosecutors have filed the following special circumstances against all defendants; robbery, financial gain, and lying in wait.”
All five have entered not guilty pleas to all charges at arraignment and are being held without bail. They are scheduled to appear for a pre-preliminary hearing on March 14, 2025 at San Bernardino Justice Center at 8:30am, Department S3.