A 38-year-old man has pleaded no contest to sexually assaulting and killing two young women who were found dumped near Los Angeles freeways less than a year apart, officials announced Monday.
Geovanni Borjas entered his plea to two counts each of first-degree murder and forcible rape and one count of kidnapping, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office.
He also admitted special circumstance allegations of multiple murders and murder in the commission of a rape and a kidnapping.
He was convicted of killing 17-year-old Michelle Lozano, who disappeared on April 24, 2011. Her body was found a day later near the 5 Freeway in Boyle Heights.
Borjas also killed 22-year-old Bree’Anna Guzman, who vanished in late December 2011. Her body was discovered about a month later near the 2 Freeway, officials said.
Both victims had been sexually assaulted.
The killings were investigated by the Los Angeles Police Department’s elite Robbery-Homicide Division, but it took some time before the two incidents were linked.
Investigators eventually requested a familial search because the assailant’s DNA had not been found in state or national criminal databases.
That familial search led them to Borjas’ father, who had been arrested earlier in his life, and further detective work identified Borjas as the possible suspect, police said at the time.
Borjas spit on the sidewalk while being followed by investigators. The saliva was collected and tested, and the DNA matched evidence linked to both killings.
Borjas was finally arrested in May 2017.
“Both families have endured a tremendous and incalculable loss,” District Attorney George Gascón said in a news release Monday. “Mr. Borjas finally took account for his heinous actions and is expected to spend the rest of his life in prison.”
Borjas faces life in prison without the possibility of parole when he is scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 12.