A Sacramento County jury convicted Mark Andre Tomas Navarrete on October 16, 2026, of two counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of his parents, the Sacramento County District Attorney's Office announced on October 19. The jury also found true special-circumstance allegations that he committed multiple murders and that the murders were carried out for financial gain.
Elk Grove News reported the same verdict, describing the case as a calculated scheme to obtain an inheritance, and FOX40 Sacramento likewise reported the conviction and the district attorney's account of how the killings were carried out and uncovered.
Source: Elk Grove News — Elk Grove Man Convicted of Parents' Murders
According to prosecutors, on June 28, 2024, Navarrete drove from his Elk Grove home to his parents' neighbourhood, parked a few blocks away, put on a mask and gloves and rode a kick scooter to their home. He entered through a side gate to avoid the front-porch Ring camera, got his parents into the garage, struck both of them on the head with an object and strangled them, the district attorney's office said.
Prosecutors said he then drove away in his parents' car, parked it a short distance from his own car and rode the scooter back, and later that morning texted his deceased parents asking if they wanted to come over for dinner. When his sister could not reach their parents, Navarrete drove to the house with his children and, in the district attorney's wording, 'discovered' his deceased parents.
Detectives found the kick scooter in Navarrete's garage, and DNA analysis revealed his DNA under his mother's fingernails, the district attorney's office said. The case was solved by the Elk Grove Police Department in part due to Flock cameras and other traffic cameras that captured his movements.
Investigators also determined that Navarrete had been scamming friends and family with fake investments promising exorbitant interest, that his parents had paid back other family members for debts he owed, and that he stood to inherit half of his parents' estate at the time of the killings, prosecutors said. This report does not name the victims, whose names were not given in the district attorney's release.
What is solid
- A Sacramento County jury convicted Navarrete of two counts of first-degree murder on Oct. 16, 2026, and found the multiple-murder and financial-gain special circumstances true — Sacramento County DA, corroborated by Elk Grove News and FOX40.
- Sentencing is set for Nov. 13, 2026, and the maximum is life in prison without the possibility of parole — Sacramento County DA.
What is only claimed
- The sentence itself has not yet been imposed, and any appeal had not been reported at the time of the district attorney's announcement.