Man accused of shooting to death 2 teens on a date at a Corona theater will stand trial

The 21-year-old man accused of shooting to death two teenagers on a date in a Corona movie theater will stand trial for their deaths, a Riverside County Superior Court judge ruled on Friday, Sept. 2, at the conclusion of a one-day preliminary hearing.

Enhancements to the murder charges of lying in wait and multiple murders make Joseph Jimenez eligible for the death penalty if convicted as charged. District Attorney Mike Hestrin has not announced whether his office would pursue that sentence.

Jimenez is accused of shooting to death Corona residents Rylee Goodrich, 18, and Anthony Barajas, 19, who were on a date at the Regal Edwards cinema on July 26, 2021.

Jimenez, in a jailhouse interview a week later with a Southern California News Group reporter, said he suffers from schizophrenia and that he heard voices that told him to kill the pair in an effort to save his friends and family from perceived harm.

In the theater, the teens and Jimenez were the only remaining customers.

Three of Jimenez’s friends, unnerved by him retrieving a gun from his car and talking to himself, had left. The friends didn’t alert anyone to danger, according to a sworn affidavit written to obtain an arrest warrant for Jimenez. The friends were not charged with any crime.

Barajas was a 2019 graduate of Mater Dei High School in Santa Ana, where he was an honor student, a soccer star and had lead roles in school plays. He had hundreds of thousands of TikTok followers.

Goodrich, a 2020 graduate of Corona High School’s STEM Academy, was enrolled at Grand Canyon University in Arizona.

Jimenez, who graduated from Santiago High School in Corona, apparently didn’t know the victims. He lived in an unincorporated area of the county near Corona known as El Cerrito.

Nearly a year ago, Jimenez pleaded not guilty, and not guilty by reason of insanity. The two different pleas were necessary because there would be two phases at trial: a guilt phase, and a phase to determine whether Jimenez was insane.

In California, defendants found not guilty by reason of insanity must be treated in a state mental hospital. Jimenez would have to remain there, a deputy district attorney has said, until he is ruled sane and not a threat to the public. But unlike a defendant ruled incompetent to stand trial and later rehabilitated, he would no longer face charges.