SLO County killer to be freed after 52 years. DA is ‘deeply disappointed’
A man who murdered a San Luis Obispo County woman in the 1970s will be released from prison on parole, according to SLO County District Attorney Dan Dow, who opposed the move and called it “deeply disappointing.”
Alberto Tamez Jr. was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole in September 1974, after he pleaded no contest to murdering 56-year-old Genevieve Adaline Moreno of Nipomo, Dow said in a news release Wednesday.
Moreno went missing late on the night of June 17, 1974, when her husband went to pick her up at the Old Blues Bar at 605 West Tefft St., where she worked. He found the bar empty, the cash register open and all the paper bills gone. He then called the Sheriff’s Office.
The next morning, Moreno’s body was found in a grove of eucalyptus trees near Tefft Street on June 18, 1974, about a mile away from the bar.
“She had been robbed, kidnapped, beaten, sexually assaulted and murdered,” and her death was attributed by a medical examiner at the time to “homicidal strangulation,” Dow said.
Tamez Jr., who was 22 at the time, was quickly identified as the lone suspect, and he subsequently admitted to beating her, robbing the cash register at the bar where she was employed, dragging her out of the business and leaving her after she lost consciousness, the release said.
Two days later, Tamez Jr. was charged with first-degree murder, robbery, kidnapping and rape, the release said. He was convicted on the murder charge after pleading no contest — meaning he accepted the consequences of the crime without admitting guilt.
Now more than 50 years later, Tamez Jr. will be released from the California Men’s Colony in San Luis Obispo, where he was imprisoned, Dow said.
He was granted parole in December, with Gov. Gavin Newsom taking no action to reverse the decision — a move the district attorney rebuked on Wednesday.
“I am deeply troubled that our criminal and victim justice system has reached a result where the man who brutally murdered Genevieve Moreno over 50 years ago will now walk free,” he said in the release. “My office fought this outcome at every stage — opposing his attempt to vacate his conviction, and making clear to the courts that Alberto Tamez, Jr. was not a peripheral figure or a legal technicality.”
“He was the killer. He admitted it. The evidence was overwhelming,” Dow concluded.
Dow said his office would continue to stand by Moreno’s memory and work to hold violent offenders accountable.
“Justice for Genevieve Moreno demanded that Alberto Tamez, Jr. remain incarcerated,” he said. “We fought for that outcome. We are deeply disappointed that the Board of Parole Hearings granted parole, and that the governor chose to take no action to reverse that decision. We will remain vigilant in protecting the people of San Luis Obispo County.”
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