Two Covelo men arrested after the body of a cannabis worker was found in a burned vehicle two years ago pleaded guilty this week to charges connected to his death, the Mendocino County District Attorney’s Office reported.
According to the office of DA David Eyster, Iran Lee Hoaglen III, 43, was charged with “participating in and causing the death in October 2023 of Hermengildo Valencia Escalera, a 43-year-old cannabis worker in Round Valley,” and on Monday, July 21, “changed his plea from not guilty to guilty of murder in the first degree, (and) Hoaglen agreed to a state prison sentence to be imposed on Sept. 4 of 25 years to life in the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.”
A second man charged in connection with the death of Escalera, Hoaglen’s co-defendant, Lawrence Allen Joaquin, 37, reportedly “changed his not guilty plea to guilty of voluntary manslaughter, (and) Joaquin agreed to a state prison sentence also to be imposed on Sept. 4 of 17 years in the CDCR.”
Eyster notes that “the law enforcement agencies that investigated and gathered the overwhelming evidence that allowed this case to resolve short of the scheduled trial date are the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office, the California Department of Justice Bureau of Forensic Services, and the DA’s own elite Bureau of Investigations.”
According to the MCSO, the body of Escalera was found on Oct. 31, 2023, after deputies responded to County Road 337L near the Covelo Dump in Covelo around 9:45 a.m. when Cal Fire personnel reported that a vehicle was on fire at that location, and that personnel from the Covelo Fire Department had found what appeared to be human remains inside the vehicle while extinguishing the fire.
After an MCSO deputy “confirmed the presence of human remains inside of the severely burnt vehicle, (MCSO) detectives were summoned to the scene, and reported that the registered owner of the vehicle was identified due to “one license plate on the vehicle surviving the fire,” and that man was reported missing to the MCSO by his father.
“When the missing person’s report was made, (MCSO) detectives were learning the missing person had been working on an illegal cannabis farm at a residence in the 23000 block of Hopper Lane in Covelo,” the MCSO reports, explaining that detectives “went to that location, and in checking the missing person’s living structure adjacent to the cannabis grow, they located an obvious crime scene.”
Joaquin and Hoaglen were identified as also residing at that location, and once MCSO detectives “established probable cause to identify both Joaquin and Hoaglen as suspects,” warrants were issued for their arrests. Since Joaquin was still in custody at the Mendocino County Jail, he was booked on murder-related charges on Nov. 6.
Learning that Hoaglen “was possibly at a residence in the 15300 block of Hudson Avenue” in Lake County, the MCSO, assisted by “the Lake County Sheriff’s Office and the Lake/Mendocino Multi-Agency Regional SWAT team,” arrested Hoaglen on Nov. 7, 2023, and booked him into county jail under a no-bail hold.
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