Member-only story
The Senseless Murders of Anthony Barajas and Rylee Goodrich
On the evening of July 26, 2021, nineteen-year-old Anthony Barajas and Rylee Goodrich, eighteen, decided to attend a 9:35 screening of The Forever Purge at the Regal Edwards Theater in Corona, California. Having met only a couple of weeks prior, this would be their first official date. Sadly, it would also be their last.
In addition to the happy couple, twenty-year-old Jose Jimenez and his high school friends Carlos, Ramon and Julian were also in attendance that night. Before heading to the movie, the foursome had gone out to dinner. Carlos would later tell authorities that Jimenez had been behaving strangely, even for him, but they had brushed it off as him trying to be the center of attention.
His companions would later recall that Jimenez had brought a backpack along, which they had convinced him to leave in the car, since large bags weren’t allowed inside the theater.
After being seated, Jimenez’s odd behavior worsened. He began talking to himself, muttering under his breath, “I can’t do that to them. They’re my friends.” Carlos says that when they asked him what was wrong, instead of responding with words, he had given them what he could only describe as a “death stare.”
