CA CA - Johnnie Herrera, 20, Oxnard, 27 Aug 1971

One possible scenario that comes to mind.

I wonder if there was a dancer hired for entertainment at the bachelor party. If so, these dancers normally bring bodyguards to make sure that nobody gets out of line.

Perhaps he crossed the line and was dealt with accordingly by the bodyguard.

I agree that something happened at that bachelor party, and everyone there knows what it was. Maybe it was even an accident of sorts; they were drunk out of their minds and they started arguing and fighting...and it got out of hand. They panicked and disposed of the body. I think that it might have been this straight forward. One thing I believe for sure....those men who were there *know*.
 
I have to disagree on the point of interracial marriage during that time frame. It absolutely *was* a *very* big deal; even in Southern California. It is very possible this was a hate crime, based on the fact he was married to a white woman...and got her pregnant. This was still very controversial in that time period.

Actually, it would have been even more controversial, because she was already three months pregnant when they married. The detective told me that people suggested that Johnnie only married her because he got her pregnant.
 
Actually, it would have been even more controversial, because she was already three months pregnant when they married. The detective told me that people suggested that Johnnie only married her because he got her pregnant.

Thank you for all your input in the posts above! I do have a question about Annette. Did she raise their daughter or did she stay with his family? How did her fasmily handle the situation?

Any possibility that during the party he maybe drank too much or had a drug(not sure if they did drugs) overdosed? And the friends or other party goers hid his body out of fear?
 
Thank you for all your input in the posts above! I do have a question about Annette. Did she raise their daughter or did she stay with his family? How did her fasmily handle the situation?

Any possibility that during the party he maybe drank too much or had a drug(not sure if they did drugs) overdosed? And the friends or other party goers hid his body out of fear?

I think the hiding his body out of fear is quite likely. I think they were probably very drunk and fight broke out, and an accidental death. Speculation, of course. I think if Bobby88 keeps up this great work, someone will speak up finally!
 
Thank you for all your input in the posts above! I do have a question about Annette. Did she raise their daughter or did she stay with his family? How did her fasmily handle the situation?

Any possibility that during the party he maybe drank too much or had a drug(not sure if they did drugs) overdosed? And the friends or other party goers hid his body out of fear?

They had a son, not a daughter. The son is Johnnie Herrera Jr. He was born 10/13/70 in Oxnard. Here's a picture of him as he looks today.

http://a1.ec-images.myspacecdn.com/i...b0f18873/l.jpg

I have no idea how long Annette stayed with the Herreras after Johnnie's disappearance. She was definitely in Texas by 1978 because she got married there to a man named Henry Morgan, a marriage that produced two daughters named Melissa and Misty (born 1979 and 1981 respectively). Annette and Henry divorced in 1989 and Henry, like Annette, is also deceased.

I don't know anything about Annette's family, except that her mother's maiden name was Dellenbach. She also apparently had at least one sibling because the inscription on her headstone reads "Beloved Daughter, Sister, and Mother". Apparently, after she divorced Henry Morgan in 1989, she took back Johnnie's surname because her headstone is marker "Annette Lee Herrera". Either that or she decided not to change her name to Morgan at all when she married Henry in 1978.

There are two death certificates on file for Johnnie, both of which were filed in 1978. One was filed by his twin brother Joe and the other by Annette. The one by Joe lists the date of death as 8/26/71 and Johnnie's age at the time as 20. The one filed by Annette has his date of death as 8/27/78 (seven years to the day after Johnnie was last seen; seven years is also the minimum number of years a person must be missing before they can be declared legally dead) and his age as 27, which is how old he would have been in 1978. It makes no sense to me why she did that, unless she just made a mistake without knowing or there was a mistake by the judge or whoever authorized the certificate.

There also seems to be a bit of a discrepancy about the date Johnnie went missing. The date he is said to have been last seen, 8/27/71, was a Friday. However on his Namus page, the approximate time he was allegedly last seen is listed as 00:30, which is equivalent to midnight on a standard clock. So I'm wondering if the party was actually on the night of the 26th and carried over into the early morning hours of the 27th. Or the party was held on the 27th and spilled into the the early morning hours of the 28th.I have a feeling that the party was on the 26th because on the death certificate that Johnnie's brother Joe made out, Johnnie's date of death is listed as 8/26/71. This would make sense if the party was on the 26th because Joe did not go to the party with Johnnie and the last time he would have seen his brother would be as Johnnie was leaving their home to go there. It would have been the other people at the party who would have seen him at midnight.
 
They had a son, not a daughter. The son is Johnnie Herrera Jr. He was born 10/13/70 in Oxnard. Here's a picture of him as he looks today.

http://a1.ec-images.myspacecdn.com/i...b0f18873/l.jpg

I have no idea how long Annette stayed with the Herreras after Johnnie's disappearance. She was definitely in Texas by 1978 because she got married there to a man named Henry Morgan, a marriage that produced two daughters named Melissa and Misty (born 1979 and 1981 respectively). Annette and Henry divorced in 1989 and Henry, like Annette, is also deceased.

I don't know anything about Annette's family, except that her mother's maiden name was Dellenbach. She also apparently had at least one sibling because the inscription on her headstone reads "Beloved Daughter, Sister, and Mother". Apparently, after she divorced Henry Morgan in 1989, she took back Johnnie's surname because her headstone is marker "Annette Lee Herrera". Either that or she decided not to change her name to Morgan at all when she married Henry in 1978.

There are two death certificates on file for Johnnie, both of which were filed in 1978. One was filed by his twin brother Joe and the other by Annette. The one by Joe lists the date of death as 8/26/71 and Johnnie's age at the time as 20. The one filed by Annette has his date of death as 8/27/78 (seven years to the day after Johnnie was last seen; seven years is also the minimum number of years a person must be missing before they can be declared legally dead) and his age as 27, which is how old he would have been in 1978. It makes no sense to me why she did that, unless she just made a mistake without knowing or there was a mistake by the judge or whoever authorized the certificate.

There also seems to be a bit of a discrepancy about the date Johnnie went missing. The date he is said to have been last seen, 8/27/71, was a Friday. However on his Namus page, the approximate time he was allegedly last seen is listed as 00:30, which is equivalent to midnight on a standard clock. So I'm wondering if the party was actually on the night of the 26th and carried over into the early morning hours of the 27th. Or the party was held on the 27th and spilled into the the early morning hours of the 28th.I have a feeling that the party was on the 26th because on the death certificate that Johnnie's brother Joe made out, Johnnie's date of death is listed as 8/26/71. This would make sense if the party was on the 26th because Joe did not go to the party with Johnnie and the last time he would have seen his brother would be as Johnnie was leaving their home to go there. It would have been the other people at the party who would have seen him at midnight.

That is interesting with the dual death certificates. Perhaps, Annette needed one to legally marry Morgan and there was some rule about not declaring someone dead until exactly 7 years and one day after they are mssing? Maybe it was easier to obtain that, then go through the required loopholes and paperwork of trying to divorce? Or perhaps, at that time she decided to take SS benefits for her son and needed some sort of death certificate? Or it may have been a simple error of the date of filing for the death certificate being placed in the date of issue.

Maybe when the brother filed the death certificate the last day he saw him was the 26th...even if the party was on the 27th. Is the brother still alive? Is Johnnie's information like DNA in Namus?
 
That is interesting with the dual death certificates. Perhaps, Annette needed one to legally marry Morgan and there was some rule about not declaring someone dead until exactly 7 years and one day after they are mssing? Maybe it was easier to obtain that, then go through the required loopholes and paperwork of trying to divorce? Or perhaps, at that time she decided to take SS benefits for her son and needed some sort of death certificate? Or it may have been a simple error of the date of filing for the death certificate being placed in the date of issue.

Maybe when the brother filed the death certificate the last day he saw him was the 26th...even if the party was on the 27th. Is the brother still alive? Is Johnnie's information like DNA in Namus?

The interesting thing is that Annette married Morgan before the exact seven-year mark. They were married on January 27, 1978. Perhaps she had already filed for divorce on grounds of abandonment and just decided to go the extra mile to declare him dead?

Joe Herrera is still very much alive and living in Oxnard. Here's what he looks like today.

http://www.vcstar.com/news/2011/sep/15/71-lost-twin-case-still-open/
 
I think the hiding his body out of fear is quite likely. I think they were probably very drunk and fight broke out, and an accidental death. Speculation, of course. I think if Bobby88 keeps up this great work, someone will speak up finally!

I also wondered if it could have been a joke or something gone horribly awry. Perhaps someone spiked Johnnie's drink without him knowing and he had a reaction to it and died. Or perhaps he had a "special" brownie (either knowingly or someone gave it to him without telling him that it had been laced with some drug) and died from some type of unforeseen complication.
 
I also wondered if it could have been a joke or something gone horribly awry. Perhaps someone spiked Johnnie's drink without him knowing and he had a reaction to it and died. Or perhaps he had a "special" brownie (either knowingly or someone gave it to him without telling him that it had been laced with some drug) and died from some type of unforeseen complication.
Hi
Saw your case on the spotlight. I'm on a Louisiana case, new to WS, but had only a few questions:
The initial police investigator you contacted certainly gave out a great deal of personal info that I found strange;
I know little of ethnic conflict in So CA from that time period, but it doesn't appear to have been strongly investigated by LE there;
The 'fluff' anniversary piece is also odd-no one thought to ask twin about the 5 day wait to report, neither did the work issue come up;
The yes, very curt message from LE. I know little of LE inner workings in large cities, but was that not an odd dept head for cold cases;
And yes, why skid row?
Bobby, have you reached out to his son?
I agree with your posters, it's a really odd case.
I happened to have been traveling through Oxnard that time, so many years ago, on my way to Big Sur to see old friends. Then back to Louisiana. Good luck, have faith, keep hope, buena suerte,
Doña Mena
 
Hi
Saw your case on the spotlight. I'm on a Louisiana case, new to WS, but had only a few questions:
The initial police investigator you contacted certainly gave out a great deal of personal info that I found strange;
I know little of ethnic conflict in So CA from that time period, but it doesn't appear to have been strongly investigated by LE there;
The 'fluff' anniversary piece is also odd-no one thought to ask twin about the 5 day wait to report, neither did the work issue come up;
The yes, very curt message from LE. I know little of LE inner workings in large cities, but was that not an odd dept head for cold cases;
And yes, why skid row?
Bobby, have you reached out to his son?
I agree with your posters, it's a really odd case.
I happened to have been traveling through Oxnard that time, so many years ago, on my way to Big Sur to see old friends. Then back to Louisiana. Good luck, have faith, keep hope, buena suerte,
Doña Mena

Johnnie's son was only ten-months-old when his father vanished, so he wouldn't really remember him. Also, not to bash Johnnie's late wife Annette, but we really don't know what (if anything) she told Johnnie Jr. about his father that may have made him try or not try to find him.

I find it so puzzling how there's very little info on Johnnie's wife Annette.
I just think it's so odd how there's almost no info about her. Even in the article, it never mentions her name, but does mention Johnnie Jr.'s name, who was likely the reason (given the values of the day) that they married. It mentions that she's dead, but nothing more. I can't help but think that Johnnie's family didn't like her, even before he got her pregnant, although the pregnancy was probably icing on the cake as far everyone was concerned. Perhaps they only reluctantly welcomed her into their family because of the baby. When the article mentions that Johnnie's family searched for him in the days before they officially reported him missing, I wonder if that included Annette. The fact that her name has never been mentioned in any of the admittedly few reports about Johnnie gives the impression that Johnnie's family doesn't really want her name linked to theirs.

I think there's a lot of things we're not being told.
 
O.K. Bobby - here's a far stretch, but an interesting alternate theory. What if there really *wasn't* a bachelor party that night? What if the "party" was just a set up to murder him? Did anyone confirm there was a bachelor party that night? Were all the attendees questioned? Did their stories match up? Where is LE in all this?
 
O.K. Bobby - here's a far stretch, but an interesting alternate theory. What if there really *wasn't* a bachelor party that night? What if the "party" was just a set up to murder him? Did anyone confirm there was a bachelor party that night? Were all the attendees questioned? Did their stories match up? Where is LE in all this?

That's actually something I have considered. Here's the exact quote from Det. Lynette Fenton of the Oxnard PD, who is in charge of Johnnie's case:

[FONT=&quot]The bachelor party that Johnnie attended the night that he disappeared was for a friend of his. Several people at the bachelor party were contacted and questioned.

However, I personally don't think this necessarily clears the attendees as possible suspects. Think of how disarmingly simple it would be. All they have to do is agree on a story to tell the authorities when questioned. They all tell identical stories to the cops and with no proof, the cops have to clear them. This doesn't mean that the cops themselves don't have their suspicions about these people, but legally, they have no clear evidence of wrongdoing and must therefore dismiss them as suspects, at least for the time being.

As I said in a previous post, there was a couple in Oxnard who got married less than two weeks after the disappearance, so there's still a possibility that there was an actual party that night for that particular groom. Or it could just as easily be a coincidence.
[/FONT]
 
That's actually something I have considered. Here's the exact quote from Det. Lynette Fenton of the Oxnard PD, who is in charge of Johnnie's case:

[FONT=&quot]The bachelor party that Johnnie attended the night that he disappeared was for a friend of his. Several people at the bachelor party were contacted and questioned.

However, I personally don't think this necessarily clears the attendees as possible suspects. Think of how disarmingly simple it would be. All they have to do is agree on a story to tell the authorities when questioned. They all tell identical stories to the cops and with no proof, the cops have to clear them. This doesn't mean that the cops themselves don't have their suspicions about these people, but legally, they have no clear evidence of wrongdoing and must therefore dismiss them as suspects, at least for the time being.
As I said in a previous post, there was a couple in Oxnard who got married less than two weeks after the disappearance, so there's still a possibility that there was an actual party that night for that particular groom. Or it could just as easily be a coincidence.
[/FONT]

BBM

I think it's great that you haven't given up on Johnnie's case.

I agree. Based on what little information we know, it doesn't seem like the party guests were really cleared. But it also doesn't seem like LE had much of an interest in the case to begin with.

IMO I don't think his disappearance was caused by a random person, simply because his car was never found. If he met with foul play through a serial murderer or the like, I don't feel they would have taken the time to hide his car. I'm not saying it's impossible, but I personally don't feel it fits in this case.

I think it had to be someone/people he knew. Like some have already mentioned, maybe something went wrong at the party, maybe he was set-up from the beginning and there was no party, maybe he stopped on his way home to try and score drugs and met up with the wrong person, maybe he was drunk and ended up driving off of a cliff/into a body of water.... There are so many scenarios.

Since it's been so long, I think the only way to get answers at this point, would be if someone came forward, who knows what happened that night.

On another note, did the magazine contact ever get back in touch with you, about the story they wanted you to co-write? I was also thinking about the final e-mail response you got from LE, and do feel it had a bit of a negative tone to it.

Do you think they weren't happy that Ms. Fenton divulged so much personal information? Maybe her supervisor read what was posted here, and felt it was inappropriate to have that info on a public forum? Or maybe they know the ball was dropped. And they don't want anyone digging deeper into things, to expose some form of negligence on LE's part, during the original investigation?

I'm just guessing here, of course. But I find it a little surprising that LE would automatically put up a wall, letting you know that you won't be getting any more information from their end.

As far as his son...have you tried sending him an e-mail? True enough, he was too young to remember him. But he might have some inside knowledge of his father's disappearance (gathered from others over the years), that could possibly shed light on something. Maybe more friend's names from the party, a girlfriend on the side, a person he was having problems with, etc. You never know. :)
 
BBM

I think it's great that you haven't given up on Johnnie's case.

I agree. Based on what little information we know, it doesn't seem like the party guests were really cleared. But it also doesn't seem like LE had much of an interest in the case to begin with.

IMO I don't think his disappearance was caused by a random person, simply because his car was never found. If he met with foul play through a serial murderer or the like, I don't feel they would have taken the time to hide his car. I'm not saying it's impossible, but I personally don't feel it fits in this case.

I think it had to be someone/people he knew. Like some have already mentioned, maybe something went wrong at the party, maybe he was set-up from the beginning and there was no party, maybe he stopped on his way home to try and score drugs and met up with the wrong person, maybe he was drunk and ended up driving off of a cliff/into a body of water.... There are so many scenarios.

Since it's been so long, I think the only way to get answers at this point, would be if someone came forward, who knows what happened that night.

On another note, did the magazine contact ever get back in touch with you, about the story they wanted you to co-write? I was also thinking about the final e-mail response you got from LE, and do feel it had a bit of a negative tone to it.

Do you think they weren't happy that Ms. Fenton divulged so much personal information? Maybe her supervisor read what was posted here, and felt it was inappropriate to have that info on a public forum? Or maybe they know the ball was dropped. And they don't want anyone digging deeper into things, to expose some form of negligence on LE's part, during the original investigation?

I'm just guessing here, of course. But I find it a little surprising that LE would automatically put up a wall, letting you know that you won't be getting any more information from their end.

As far as his son...have you tried sending him an e-mail? True enough, he was too young to remember him. But he might have some inside knowledge of his father's disappearance (gathered from others over the years), that could possibly shed light on something. Maybe more friend's names from the party, a girlfriend on the side, a person he was having problems with, etc. You never know. :)

Thanks. Johnnie's birthday (2/17/51) is the same as my aunt who in May 2010, just a few days before Johnnie's case was first added to the Doe Network, was diagnosed with cancer (which she beat, BTW) and I took the news of her illness and the fact that she and Johnnie shared the same birthday as an omen to look into Johnnie's disappearance. Two years on, I'm still here. FWIW, my mother (the younger sister of the aunt) is a year and a day younger, born 2/18/52.

I've heard nothing from the magazine since November. If I ever get enough information, I'd love to write a book about Johnnie's disappearance. That could definitely generate some clues.
 
Bump. This Wednesday will mark the 40th Fourth of July (since he vanished in August of 1971) that Johnnie's family will have celebrated without him.
 
just found this thread. i was in california last august for 10 days for a few of those days we were in the ventura area and staying in camrillo but went to the oxnard area for shopping and such. i did notice more mexicans/ and hispanics in that area but in general i noticed a whole lot more of them in calfornia vs connecticut when i am from. sounds fishy that his car vanished bobby why dont you contact the twin brother and try to get some info from him and go from there
 
just found this thread. i was in california last august for 10 days for a few of those days we were in the ventura area and staying in camrillo but went to the oxnard area for shopping and such. i did notice more mexicans/ and hispanics in that area but in general i noticed a whole lot more of them in calfornia vs connecticut when i am from. sounds fishy that his car vanished bobby why dont you contact the twin brother and try to get some info from him and go from there

Johnnie's older brother Ralph is on Facebook. I was thinking of getting in touch with him via PM on there. I didn't see Johnnie's twin brother Joe on there however. Since he was the exact same age as Johnnie at the time and was particularly close to him (like many twins are), I think he may have had a better idea of who Johnnie may have been with that night.
 
bobby i would invite him to websleuths and tell him there are people who are actively searching for answers to what happened to your brother. maybe he has more info he would be willing to share on here
 
I just sent him a PM on Facebook, but I held off on inviting him here until I found out if he was even interested in talking to me about Johnnie's case.
 

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