A look at King City's 28 unsolved murders.

There's about a 1 in 3 chance you can get away with murder in the United States, according to FBI crime statistics. 

That means investigators, both at the FBI and small-town police departments, are trying to solve thousands of unsolved murders. (NPR put together this searchable database, making it easy to see the percentage of various types of crime your local law enforcement agency has solved in recent years.)

Both King City PD and the Monterey Peninsula Cold Case Project announced plans this week to devote investigative energy to cracking dozens of unsolved murders. 

The Weekly has reported on why those efforts are launching now and what police hope to accomplish.

Part of what they're asking for is community participation: Witnesses are key to solving cold cases, says Investigator Allen Rowe, who is working 24 cold cases in King City.

And sometimes the passage of time can even help: "All these hardcore gang members, who said they’ve never provide information, their lives change," Rowe said at a press conference Monday at King City PD.

"All of a sudden I get a call, that they become a born-again Christian, or their mother died, or, 'I have terminal cancer.' They’ll say, 'I’ve had something on my heart.'" 

KCPD are urging anyone with knowledge of these murders to call their anonymous tip line at 386-5980. 

Each crime forced wrenching grief upon family and friends. Here's a list of each of the unsolved crimes in King City, with as much detail as investigators are willing and able to release. 

Each of these murders occurred in King City. Over the same time period, police have solved no more than five murders there. 

• 9pm Feb. 5, 1999: Two 18-year-olds, Isidro Lomeli and Raul Flores Jr., were at a party in the garage of a private home. The suspect knocked on the garage door, and as Lomeli started opening the garage door, the suspect reached underneath and fired a gun, injuring three people and killing two. 
• 11:55pm Oct. 2, 1999: Victorino Garcia and his wife were leaving a wedding reception at the IOOF Hall in King City. Garcia, 24, returned to retrieve a flower arrangement, and on his way back to the car, was shot multiple times by a mid-20s man.
• 7:30am Nov. 15, 2011: The body of 21-year-old Robert Rodriguez was found under the southbound Highway 101 bridge at San Lorenzo Creek. The suspect vehicle was described as a new, burgundy-colored Chevrolet Z71 pickup. 
• 11:55pm Sept. 13, 2002: 18-year-old Adam Jose Pineda and his younger brother were walking near their house on Haven Drive. Both were shot, and the older brother died from his injuries. 
• 11:05pm Sept. 28, 2002: While riding his bike, 21-year-old Juan Camacho was shot repeatedly in the torso. He died in the trauma center at San Jose Medical Center. 
• 9:30pm Jan. 1, 2005: A Catholic priest was walking at St. John's Baptist Church when he discovered the body of 26-year-old Macario Garrafa, aka Rafael Moncada, who had been stabbed multiple times. 
• 7:05pm Oct. 26, 2007: 29-year-old Ricardo Villapando parked and got out of his car for work on Broadway, King City's main drag. As he was speaking with a co-worker, a man about 5-foot-7 wearing gloves and a black hoodie, approached with a handgun. Both colleagues tried to run, but Villapando sustained a fatal gunshot wound to the head. 
• 3am Jan. 1, 2008: Two men wearing dark pants and jackets approached a group of three friends celebrating New Year's Eve in front of 19-year-old Juan Anguiano's home and began shooting. Anguiano was killed.
• 5:48pm Sept. 5, 2008: 17-year-old Juan Torres was chased from the trailer park on Broadway by two men. He jumped a concrete wall but was confronted and stabbed to death. Two suspects in this case were arrested, but never prosecuted. 
• 9pm April 22, 2009: A group of friends was hanging out in a garage on Beech Street playing video games, when two men walked up the driveway and opened fire. Four boys were hit; two survived with partial paralysis. 13-year-old Alejandro Cortes and 18-year-old Abel Silva were killed. 
• 7:55pm Sept. 3, 2009: 31-year-old Carlos Chavez was walking with his nephew and friends from Cheezer's Pizza to the car when a man approached and fired at the group, fatally striking Chavez in the chest. 
• 9:55pm Feb. 12, 2010: A group of four men approached 22-year-old Ruben Martinez as he walked from San Lorenzo Liquors to King City Cinema. Three fired shots, killing Martinez. 
• 7:30pm March 3, 2010: Jose A. Chavez, 29, parked in the driveway of his Cambridge Avenue home and prepared to go inside. A man wearing a gray sweatshirt and gray beanie approached, shot Chavez in the head, and fled the scene. 
• 9:15pm May 9, 2010: 15-year-old Marcos Pineda was hanging out with friends at the Rio Vista Mobile Home Park, when he walked away to call his mom and look for a place to go to the bathroom. An unknown number of suspects approached him, possibly from a white van, and fired. Pineda ran toward his friends before he collapsed and died on the scene. 
• 9:05pm Oct. 18, 2011: Jose Trujillo, 21, was standing outside his girlfriend's house on Cambridge Avenue when a man wearing a black hoodie and dark baseball cap approached and fired, killing him.
• 8:15pm Sept. 2, 2012: 25-year-old Diego Romero was sitting on the couch in his friend's garage when a thin man, about 5-foot-9, fired from across the street, striking Romero. 
• 8:25pm Sept. 17, 2012: 22-year-old Ricardo Salazar was shot by an unknown suspect while standing outside his Division Street house.
• 7:45pm Jan. 10, 2013: 18-year-old Armando Ortiz was walking on Willow Street with his uncle when a white four-door sedan with tinted windows passed by. Suspects in the car yelled derogatory remarks at Ortiz and his uncle, pulled a u-turn to confront them, then fired, hitting Ortiz. 
• 8:35pm March 15, 2013: Matthew Torres, 18, his sister and a friend were outside of Torres' South Vandehurst Avenue apartment when unknown suspects drove by fired from a dark-colored Honda Accord, killing Torres. 
• 10:45am, June 25, 2013: Jose Llamas, 34, and Elvira Cerna, 35, pulled into a housing complex on Jayne Street to pick up Cerna's cousin. As they rolled up the driveway, two men in a dark-colored sedan fired, killing them both.
• 8:20pm Nov. 13, 2013: 18-year-old Ireneo Santos was walking down North Second Street when a man approached from behind and shot and killed him.
• 11:10pm Feb. 8, 2015: A group of men drove by Rio Vista Mobile Home Park and shot at a group, hitting and killing 21-year-old Antonio Mendez. 
• 11pm May 1, 2015: 25-year-old Travis Thommarson was a passenger in a car that stopped in front of his home to drop him off. Unknown suspects, who may have been lying in wait, fired and killed Thommarson.
• 12:45am May 3, 2015: Luis Aldape, age 19, was sitting in his car with his 6-year-old brother and another adult passenger. Suspects ran up and fired, striking both adults and killing Aldape. 
• 9:10pm July 1, 2015: Three suspects approached 29-year-old Michael Benavides while he was sitting in his car at a friend's place. One suspect, 15-year-old Leonel Camacho, was arrested and charged with homicide. This case remains under investigation and additional arrests are a possibility.