Governor Gavin Newsom is putting up a $50,000 reward for information in the unsolved murder of Estevan Mejia, a 34-year-old Orange County Sheriff's Department nurse who was fatally shot in the Whittier Narrows Recreation Area in South El Monte in 2024. The reward is one of six the governor announced Friday, together totaling $300,000 across unsolved killings scattered from the Bay Area to Southern California.
Mejia was last seen driving his own car; KTLA reported that the car was recovered the following day. According to MyNewsLA.com, Newsom said every family deserves answers when a loved one is taken by violence, and he urged anyone with information about the six cases to contact local law enforcement.
The San Gabriel Valley Tribune reported that Mejia was found fatally shot on October 1, 2024, in a dirt lot south of Durfee Avenue and east of Rosemead Boulevard, with a gunshot wound to the head. At the time, detectives were searching for Mejia's four-door silver Toyota Corolla, bearing the license plate 5VSW902.
A Statewide Push Across Six Counties
The reward for Mejia's case is part of a broader package covering unsolved murders in San Mateo, Sacramento, Fresno, San Diego, Ventura and Los Angeles counties, the station's report states. Each of the six $50,000 rewards is available specifically for information leading to both an arrest and a conviction, not simply a tip or a lead. An official announcement from the Governor of California's office names the victims as Michelle Matteucci in Daly City, Gurmej Atwal and Surinder Singh in Elk Grove, John Graves in Fresno, Darnell Smith in San Diego, Eduardo Lira in Santa Paula, and Mejia in South El Monte — a list of seven names, even though the reward total and case count are elsewhere described as six. A separate report from Cedar News likewise names all seven victims when describing families still awaiting justice, leaving the discrepancy between six announced cases and seven named victims unresolved in the available materials.
Anyone with information about Mejia's killing is asked to contact Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Detective Amber Montenegro at 323-890-5500, the same source notes. Under state law, local law enforcement agencies can ask the governor to offer rewards in specified unsolved cases once investigators have exhausted their leads, which is the mechanism behind Friday's announcement.
Part of a Larger Pattern of State Reward Offers
This is not the first time Newsom's office has turned to reward money to jolt a cold case loose. Earlier in 2026, the administration re-released $50,000 rewards tied to five cold-case murders and the shooting of a police officer in the San Francisco Bay Area, according to CBS San Francisco. That same announcement noted rewards had been re-released across 27 unsolved cases statewide, with Newsom saying in a statement that every family deserves answers and justice.
California's official rewards program describes offering up to $50,000 for tips that lead to an arrest and conviction in unsolved crimes, a standing framework the state has leaned on repeatedly as cases like Mejia's remain open years later. For now, the investigation into who shot Mejia and left his stripped-down Corolla miles from the scene remains unsolved, with detectives hoping the reward — and renewed public attention — might finally produce the tip that breaks it open.
