In the midst of his trial, a Torrance man pleaded no contest on Monday, Oct. 31, to raping and murdering a teenage girl and a young woman about eight months apart in 2011 — opening himself up to a sentence of life behind bars without parole.
Geovanni Borjas, 38, pleaded no contest to two counts each of first-degree murder and forcible rape, along with a single count of kidnapping to commit rape. He is scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 12.
Borjas was charged in May 2017 with the Dec. 26, 2011, slaying of Bree’Anna Guzman, 22, and the April 24, 2011, killing of Michelle Lozano, 17.
Lozano’s body was found about 11:40 p.m. April 25, 2011, alongside the 5 Freeway near State Street in Boyle Heights. The body had been wrapped in plastic bags, put in a plastic container and dumped over a masonry barrier along the freeway.
Guzman’s partially clothed body was discovered on Jan. 26, 2012, near the Riverside Drive on-ramp to the southbound 2 Freeway in the Silver Lake area. She left her home in Lincoln Heights the day after Christmas to go to a store but never returned.
Police initially did not believe the two killings were related. But detectives eventually connected them and requested permission from the state Attorney General’s Office to perform a familial DNA search. The father was in the system, and that lead police to reason who the suspect might be and they followed him and collected his DNA after he spit on a sidewalk. The DNA was a match to both murders, police have said.
Borjas faces a possible sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. Prosecutors were originally seeking the death penalty in the case, but that punishment was taken off of the table following the election of District Attorney George Gascón, who opposes capital punishment.
Guzman’s mother said during a court hearing last year the decision was a “slap in the face” to the victims’ families.