A California man convicted of killing his parents for financial gain—and then taking his children with him as he staged the discovery of their bodies—will spend the rest of his life in prison.
In an effort to create a false trail, Mark Andre Tomas Navarrete even sent text messages to his already deceased parents, asking if they planned to come over for dinner.
Judge Michael Bowman sentenced Navarrete to two consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole after a jury found him guilty of two counts of first-degree murder on Oct. 16, 2026.
The jury also determined that Navarrete had committed multiple murders and that the killings were carried out for financial gain.
According to Aaron Miller, a principal criminal attorney with the Homicide Unit, the Elk Grove man expected to inherit half of his parents’ estate after killing them on June 28, 2024.
Navarrete had been operating fraudulent investment schemes aimed at friends and relatives, assuring them he would return their money with unusually high interest. Investigators said his parents had helped repay some of the family members he owed, a decision that deepened his anger toward them.
That resentment ultimately became a murder plot.
Navarrete drove from his Elk Grove residence to the area where his parents lived, abandoned his vehicle several blocks away and concealed his identity with a mask and gloves. He then used a kick scooter to reach their home.
To avoid the Ring camera positioned near the front porch, he entered through a side gate and encountered his parents at the rear entrance.
After luring them into the garage, Navarrete hit both victims in the head with an object and then strangled them while facing them.
He escaped in his parents’ vehicle, left it a short distance from where he had parked his own car and rode the scooter back to retrieve it.
His next move involved using his own children to make the crime appear to have been discovered innocently.
When his sister became worried after failing to contact their parents, Navarrete went to their home with his children and pretended to find the bodies.
That carefully constructed story began to collapse as detectives pieced together the evidence.
Investigators found the kick scooter inside Navarrete’s garage, and DNA testing later identified his DNA beneath his mother’s fingernails.
The Elk Grove Police Department also relied on Flock cameras and other traffic-surveillance footage to reconstruct Navarrete’s movements on the day of the murders.