Antolín García Torres, 21, convicted of the murder of 15-year-old Sierra LaMar on March 16, 2012, may now have a new trial after a California appeals court overturned his conviction on Friday, in a shocking turn of events in one of the Bay Area’s most emotional and notorious disappearances.
Release Date
02/27/2026
Sierra LaMar was 15 years old. On the day of her disappearance in Morgan Hill, March 16, 2012, she got ready for school as usual, responding to a friend’s text message at 7:11 a.m. and using her computer until 7:12 a.m. Her mother and her mother’s boyfriend had already left the house when Sierra likely left around 7:20 a.m. to catch the bus to Sobrato High School. But the bus passed by her stop, and Sierra wasn’t there. It wasn’t until after the school day ended that Sierra’s mother learned she hadn’t arrived.
Calls to Sierra’s cell phone went unanswered, and when her mother arrived home, she found the lights off and the doors locked. Police went to the house and began searching for Sierra.
The next day, they found her phone near Santa Teresa Blvd and Schellar Avenue, a mile from her home. A bag containing the clothes she had been wearing that day was also located. Detectives asked the public to be on the lookout for a red Volkswagen Jetta with a black convertible top that appeared in surveillance footage near the scene.
That eventually led them to a 21-year-old former Safeway employee named Antolín García Torres, who was living with his pregnant girlfriend in a mobile home park at the time. Surveillance cameras at the park showed his red Jetta leaving the parking lot around 7 a.m. on the day of Sierra’s disappearance. Later, the prosecution presented DNA evidence in court linking a rope found in the car to Sierra’s hair and García-Torres’s DNA to Sierra’s jeans. There was no evidence that they knew each other before the day of her disappearance.
Although Sierra remained missing, prosecutors from the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office pursued a murder case. They also charged García-Torres with three counts of attempted kidnapping during the commission of a carjacking for three unrelated crimes in Safeway parking lots when he was 17.
Prosecutors argued that García-Torres kidnapped Sierra with the intent to rape her. In 2017, a jury found him guilty of murder committed during the commission of or attempted kidnapping; he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
For years, García-Torres worked on the appeal of the case. On Friday, California’s Sixth District Court of Appeal overturned the conviction, ruling that the prosecution lacked “evidence of intentional, deliberate, and premeditated murder or specific intent to kill.” The court also ruled that adding charges related to the Safeway parking lot vehicle thefts was “improper and prejudicial.”
García Torres, now 34, remains incarcerated at Corcoran State Prison while the prosecution decides whether to refile charges. “We just received the opinion and are reviewing it,” the prosecution said Friday night. “However, we will never stop seeking justice for Sierra.”
The Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office expressed its “disappointment” with the court’s ruling in a statement released Saturday. “We have full confidence in the Santa Clara County Prosecutor’s Office as it evaluates next steps,” the sheriff’s office said.
“Our detectives have continued to diligently search for new information and remain steadfast in their commitment to this investigation,” the statement added. “They will not rest until they find Sierra and can bring closure to this case for her family.”
