Four men convicted of Long Beach murder four years later

​Nearly four years following his brutal death, some measure of justice has been found for murdered Hector Jauregui Campos, 24. On September 7, 2012, Campos was shot twice, beaten, strangled, and yet survived a trip to the hospital and did not succumb to his injuries until the next day.

​On July 25, 2016, four men were convicted of kidnapping and murdering Campos.

​The incident began in the Mira Loma home belonging to the mother and stepfather of defendant Rafael Bravo, 25. There the victim met with Bravo, defendant Jose Duenas, 23, and defendant Christopher Arevalo Ramirez, 24. Campos was apparently a friend or acquaintance of Bravo and knew Duenas. It is not known whether or not he was familiar with Ramirez.

​For reasons the Los Angeles District Attorney does not know or cannot corroborate, the defendants shot Campos in the head and also hit him with a sledgehammer.

​Campos did not die. According to a witness, Duenas and Ramirez then beat him in the middle of a street before putting him in a car and driving him to Long Beach and the home of the fourth defendant, Rafael Antonio Portales, 25. Meanwhile, according to prosecution, Bravo drove Campos's truck and dumped it in Pomona.

​At the Long Beach apartment building, Portales, Duenas, and Ramirez spoke to the victim before resuming a physical assault against him. Duenas commenced strangling Campos with a shirt he placed around the victim's neck. Another witness claimed that when Campos's body went limp, the defendants beat him more before putting his body in the trunk of Ramirez's truck.

​Ramirez and Portales drove the truck to an alley, pulled Campos out, and shot him in the head a second time. They drove away, assuming he had died.

​The witness who'd viewed the strangling called police with Ramirez's license plate number. Police subsequently found the vehicle and pulled it over, finding Campos's blood on the two defendants, Ramirez and Portales. The two men were arrested.

​Meanwhile, a woman found Campos lying in the alley and called for an ambulance, at which point Campos was transported to a hospital. He died the next day.

​Soon after, authorities acted on a tip and found Bravo cleaning up the crime scene in Mira Loma, where he was arrested. Duenas was arrested at the scene of the strangulation.

​Bravo and Ramirez are cousins. Duenas was good friends with Bravo. Meanwhile, Portales was friends with Duenas and Ramirez.

​A jury deliberated for three days before finding all four defendants guilty of second-degree murder and kidnapping. Each defendant faces the possibility of life in prison.