The family of Blanca Dueñas and other loved ones of crime victims hold candles during a vigil April 26 in Yuba City, pausing in silence as victims’ names were read during the annual remembrance ceremony.

YUBA CITY, CA (MPG) - A candlelight vigil and remembrance ceremony brought families together April 26 to honor Sutter County victims of violent crime, each name carrying a story of loss, unanswered questions and, in some cases, long-delayed justice.

The ceremony was held in conjunction with National Crime Victims’ Rights Week, observed April 19-25. The Sutter County Board of Supervisors proclaimed the week on April 14, recognizing the lasting physical, emotional and social impact crime has on victims, families and communities.

The Sutter County District Attorney Victim Services hosted the ceremony at Veterans Memorial Hall, where victim advocates, law enforcement officials and families gathered in a room lined with photographs of lives cut short. Their faces looked out over the crowd, a reminder that behind every violent death is a life interrupted.

Among the display was a photo of Blanca Dueñas.

Dueñas was murdered July 26, 1999, by her husband, Francisco Arellano Navarro, who fled the country with the couple’s children. Authorities found her body inside her Yuba City apartment with multiple stab wounds to her abdomen and chest and a phone cord wrapped around her neck four times.

Attendees at a Remembrance Ceremony honoring crime victims in Yuba City of April 26 search for names on plaques that date back to the 1970s.

The search for accountability stretched on for decades before investigators received information in 2019 placing Arellano in Mexico, setting into motion efforts to bring him back. Authorities extradited him to Sutter County in 2022. A jury later convicted him of first-degree murder and sentenced him to spend the rest of his life in prison.

District Attorney Jennifer Dupré said Arellano’s trial brought together years of investigative work and testimony that forced the family to relive the tragedy.

“They sat through all of it with dignity and unimaginable strength,” she said.

Blanca’s brother, Victor Dueñas, said the years without answers weighed heavily on his parents and siblings and that the pain of her loss never eased.

“We gathered around the dinner table and saw our sister’s empty chair,” he said.

Arellano’s arrest, he added, brought a mix of emotions.

A child receives a white carnation during the remembrance ceremony April 26 outside Veterans Memorial Hall in Yuba City, where families gathered to honor loved ones lost to violent crime.

“Sweet because it felt great knowing he was captured … and bitter because he lived his life as a free man, all while we suffered,” Dueñas said.

After the indoor program, attendees moved outside for the candle-lighting ceremony. Families gathered close as the names of victims, some lost recently and others whose stories stretch back decades, were spoken into the evening air. Each name carried its own history, its own unanswered questions and its own place in Sutter County memory.

Among those honored was Michael Lyons, 8, who was kidnapped, tortured and killed May 16, 1996, by Robert Boyd Rhodes, a convicted serial rapist who a jury sentenced to death for his crime.

Leola Shreves, 94, was murdered in her home on Jan. 19, 2013. Authorities described her death as exceptionally brutal, and the case remained unsolved for six years until DNA analysis identified Armando Aryas Cuadras, 29, who was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.

A family honors their loved one who was lost to a violent crime at a vigil held April 26 in Yuba City, hosted by Sutter County District Attorney’s Victim Services.

Many of those remembered were killed violently by reckless or impaired drivers, including 19-year-old Sukhjot Singh Dhillon and his father, Ranjit Dhillon, who died July 6, 2021, after their vehicle was pushed into oncoming traffic and struck by a big rig, causing a fiery crash. Nathan Kesterson, 10, was killed April 19, 2020, in a multi-vehicle collision. His father was later convicted of second-degree murder and gross vehicular manslaughter for driving while intoxicated. Matthew Hayes, 19, who was preparing to join the U.S. Army, died Feb. 27, 2002, when a speeding utility van crashed through a guardrail during a race with a motorcycle on the Marysville Bridge and struck the vehicle Hayes was riding in.

Other lives were taken in targeted acts of violence. Eva Crist, who died Dec. 8, 1986, was attacked in a public place and suffered fatal stab wounds to her heart. Her ex-boyfriend, Efren Calderas Meza, who is accused of stalking and killing Crist in a jealous rage remains on the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list. James Marshall was killed Nov. 7, 2000, after being shot four times as he sat in his vehicle.

Other names from across the years were read, some tied to moments when answers finally came and others still shadowed by uncertainty. Families stepped forward one by one, placing handwritten notes into a lantern and lighting candles in their loved ones’ honor.

A white carnation marked each life remembered.