Back in the '80s, I frequently stopped at the Circle K that used to be on West El Camino and Grove Avenue. I got to know the cashier really well. His name was Gregory Rucker. He was killed during a robbery at that store by a few cracked-out teens. What happened with this case?
– printndiddie23, Sacramento
Two men were sentenced to prison and three juveniles were committed to the California Youth Authority for their involvement in what was described as the sniper slaying of Gregory Rucker.
According to stories in The Bee, Rucker, 26, was working the graveyard shift at Circle K in North Sacramento while awaiting final approval of his hiring as a correctional officer with the California Department of Corrections. On July 31, 1989, he was shot in the back of the head as he restocked the beer cooler.
Three teenagers were cruising Sacramento in a stolen car, looking for a place to rob, according to court testimony and police reports, and they returned to the Circle K market where they had had some problems with a clerk earlier in the evening.
Damian Santana Lorta, then 18, was identified as the triggerman. He pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and was sentenced to 34 years to life in prison. Now 42 years old, he remains in prison at the state Correctional Training Facility in Soledad.
Another 18-year-old, Sitelimani Tavake Peaua, was found guilty of second-degree burglary, second-degree robbery and being an accessory to homicide and was sentenced to three years, eight months in prison.
The three juveniles, who were 13, 14 and 17 at the time of the slaying, were to be incarcerated at least seven years, or until they reached their 25th birthdays. Because they were juveniles, they were not named in The Bee's stories.
When deputy sheriff Jeffrey Mitchell was gunned down in 2006, he had just pulled over a white van. Later a white van was found with two dead bodies inside. Were those two people ever identified?
– Stephen A, Sacramento
Nearly 12 hours after Sacramento County Sheriff's Deputy Jeffrey Mitchell was shot and killed while checking on a white van without a license plate on a rural road near Sloughhouse, the bodies of Allan E. Shubert, 43, and Nicole Ann Welch, 28, were found in Shubert's white van 20 miles away.
The white Chevrolet van was in a shallow stretch of the Cosumnes River along the El Dorado County line. It was determined that Shubert and Welch died of carbon monoxide poisoning.
According to stories in The Bee, detectives do not believe either Shubert or Welch was involved in Mitchell's killing, and they suspect their deaths were an accident. But they believe the deaths are linked to Mitchell's in some way.
One possibility is that Shubert's and Welch's bodies were in the van when Mitchell stopped it and that he was shot as part of a cover-up.
– Cathy Locke
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