A 28-year-old illegal immigrant who had already been deported from the United States three times is accused of stabbing to death two women and an infant in a Modesto, California, home, less than a year after a San Joaquin County jail refused to notify federal immigration authorities of his release, allegedly because of the state's sanctuary law.
Joaquin Escoto, a Mexican national born in Jalisco, now faces three counts of murder and is being held without bail. He is scheduled to appear in court Monday. The victims, Fabiola Gonzalez, 23; Silvia Nuñez, 54; and infant Mateo Gonzalez, were found Thursday morning in the 1600 block of Monterey Avenue after police responded to a 911 call reporting a domestic disturbance around 9:20 a.m.
The case has become the latest and most visceral example of the real-world cost of California's 2017 sanctuary law, which bars local law enforcement from cooperating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement in most circumstances. A senior law enforcement official told the New York Post that ICE had specifically requested notification of Escoto's release from the San Joaquin County jail following a DUI arrest in June, and was ignored.
The timeline is damning. Escoto had already been deported three times. He had been arrested for DUI at least once before. Then, in June, San Joaquin County law enforcement arrested him again for driving under the influence. ICE learned of the arrest and asked the jail to let agents know before Escoto walked free.
The jail did not comply. Escoto was released. Less than one year later, three people were dead.
A senior law enforcement official provided police documents to the Post substantiating those claims. That official was blunt about why the notification never happened:
"Safe to say, California law prohibited the jail from complying."
Representatives for the San Joaquin County Sheriff and ICE did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
California's sanctuary law, passed in 2017, prohibits state and local law enforcement from using resources for federal immigration enforcement. Police cannot ask about immigration status, detain individuals solely at ICE's request, or share information with immigration authorities, with limited exceptions for certain criminal convictions. A DUI arrest, apparently, does not clear that bar, even for a man deported three times and living in the country illegally.
The pattern is not new. DHS has previously condemned sanctuary policies in California after other alleged killings by foreign nationals, and the debate over whether these laws protect communities or endanger them has only intensified under the current administration.
When Modesto police arrived Thursday morning, they found Fabiola Gonzalez inside the home suffering from multiple stab wounds. She was pronounced dead at the scene. Officers then located Silvia Nuñez, also dead from stab wounds, and infant Mateo Gonzalez, who had been stabbed and was transported to a hospital, where he died.
A fourth person, a child approximately four years old, was also found inside the home with stab wounds and was transported for medical evaluation. Police have not publicly identified the child or stated the child's relationship to the victims or the suspect.
Investigators believe Escoto shared a child with one of the victims, but police would not say which victim. They also would not say whether either of the children found in the home was believed to be his.
Escoto fled the scene and was later found hiding inside a nearby residence. Modesto police established a perimeter and called in SWAT and hostage negotiators. He was taken into custody without incident.
Lt. Eric Schuller of the Modesto Police Department addressed the public afterward:
"This is a tragedy. Words cannot express how terrible this incident is."
Schuller added that the department would "do everything that we can to investigate it and bring closure to the families."
Police did not identify a motive for the murders. They said they currently believe the incident was isolated.
The violence forced Orville Wright Elementary School, located near the crime scene, into lockdown. Students and staff were relocated to La Loma Junior High School as a precaution. Road closures around Monterey and Thrasher avenues remained in place through Friday as the investigation continued.
The victims in this case were not public figures. They were a young woman, a middle-aged woman, and a baby, people whose names most Americans will never know. That is the part of the sanctuary debate that too often gets lost in policy abstraction. The cost is not theoretical. It lands on specific families, in specific homes, on specific Thursday mornings.
Cases like this one continue to surface across the country. In New York, ICE has pressed local officials to hold illegal immigrants charged with violent crimes, only to face resistance from jurisdictions that prioritize non-cooperation with federal immigration enforcement over public safety.
U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi has argued that sanctuary laws like California's "impede law enforcement and put American citizens at risk by design." In June, the Department of Justice filed suit against Los Angeles over its own sanctuary city policies, a move that signaled the administration's willingness to challenge these statutes head-on.
The legal and political battle is far from settled. Supporters of sanctuary laws argue they encourage illegal immigrants to cooperate with local police without fear of deportation. Critics counter that the laws create a shield for dangerous individuals who have already demonstrated contempt for the legal system, individuals like Escoto, who was deported three times and kept coming back.
The question the Modesto case forces is not abstract: If ICE had been notified when Escoto was released from the San Joaquin County jail, would Fabiola Gonzalez, Silvia Nuñez, and baby Mateo Gonzalez still be alive?
Nobody can answer that with certainty. But the facts are plain. ICE asked. The jail refused. California law, by the account of a senior law enforcement official, is why. And now three people are dead.
The situation in Modesto echoes other recent tragedies. In Missouri, a teenager was allegedly lured to his death by an illegal immigrant suspect, prompting Republican officials to demand accountability from the jurisdictions that failed to act. In each case, the pattern repeats: a suspect who should not have been in the country, local authorities who declined to cooperate with federal enforcement, and victims left to bear the consequences of that decision.
Escoto's prior deportation history raises its own questions, ones that remain unanswered. When was he deported? Under what circumstances did he reenter the country each time? What, if anything, was done to prevent his return? The available facts do not say.
What the facts do say is that he was in custody in June. Federal agents wanted him. And California's law stood in the way.
There is also the matter of the surviving four-year-old child, found in a home with three dead bodies and suffering stab wounds of their own. That child's identity, condition, and future are unknown to the public. The human wreckage of this crime extends well beyond the three lives taken.
Across the country, similar conflicts between local non-cooperation policies and federal enforcement continue to play out. On Long Island, ICE detained an illegal immigrant accused of kidnapping a four-year-old girl after a judge released him without bail, another case where the gap between local and federal priorities left a community exposed.
Escoto will face a judge Monday. The criminal justice system will process his case. But the deeper accountability question, the one California's political leadership has spent years dodging, remains unanswered.
The sanctuary law was sold as a humane measure. Its architects said it would build trust between immigrant communities and local police. What it built in Modesto was a wall between ICE and a three-time deportee with a DUI record, a wall that held firm right up until a 23-year-old woman, a 54-year-old woman, and a baby were stabbed to death in their own home.
No one in Sacramento will be charged for that. No state legislator will stand in a courtroom Monday. The families of Fabiola Gonzalez, Silvia Nuñez, and Mateo Gonzalez will carry the weight of a policy choice they never made.
When a law's stated purpose is compassion and its documented result is a dead infant, the law deserves more than a defense, it deserves an explanation.
