Opinion ID: 2633651
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The killing of Tracie Clark

Text: Connie Zambrano worked as a prostitute on Union Avenue in Bakersfield. In the early morning hours of February 8, 1987, Zambrano saw a girl, whom she had not seen before, enter a beige Ford pickup truck with a brown camper shell and dark bubble windows. The girl appeared to point to a motel, but the truck instead proceeded straight before stopping for a few minutes on a side street, then heading out of town. Zambrano recognized the truck and its driver, whom she had seen and spoken to many times on Union Avenue. Zambrano once had a date with him; he had paid her $20 for sex. At trial, Zambrano identified the driver as defendant. On the afternoon of February 8, 1987, two farmers were shooting squirrels when they saw a half-naked woman's body submerged in a few feet of water in the Arvin-Edison Canal a short distance from the Hermosa Road bridge. Summoned to the scene, sheriff's investigators saw the body facedown in the water about 50 feet south of the bridge. Searching the scene, the investigators found tire tracks and shoe prints in the dirt shoulder of the eastbound lane (on the south side) of Hermosa Road, east of the canal. A Lifestyle Contour condom and condom wrapper were on the ground in that area. There was a pool of blood in the center of the eastbound lane of the road east of the bridge. A bloody shoe print was in the road near the puddle. Spots of blood led from that pool across the road to an area near a telephone pole in the dirt shoulder of the westbound lane (on the north side) of Hermosa Road. There was a disturbance impression in the dirt embankment east of the telephone pole. A trail of smeared blood led from the pool of blood west to the center of the bridge over the canal. There were blood spots on the bridge, on the cement curb of the canal, and on the rail of the canal. A pathologist for the Kern County Coroner's Office examined the body and found a number of gunshot wounds. Two shots had entered the front of the chest near the right breast, penetrating the lungs. One bullet had passed through the body, while the second had lodged near the center of the back. A third shot had grazed the right side of the chest. A fourth shot, which had been fired at fairly close range, had entered the right side of the chest, passed through several organs, and lodged in the left side of the body. A fifth shot had grazed the right side of the abdomen near the waistline without entering the body cavity. A sixth shot had entered the back near the midline and lodged near the right collarbone. There also were abrasions on the buttocks that were consistent with the body being dragged after death. The pathologist concluded the victim bled to death from the multiple gunshot wounds and probably died before her body was placed in the water.