The blaze came hours after a woman ended a two-year relationship and took her children to her father’s home, say prosecutors.

STOCKTON, Calif. — A Stockton man was sentenced to life without parole after pleading guilty in the fire deaths of his former girlfriend and two of her young sons, closing a case that began the morning after the couple broke up in June 2024.

The case matters now because it ended without a trial in one of San Joaquin County’s most severe homicide prosecutions. Jose Carmen Cardona admitted killing Lizbeth Gutierrez-Salazar, 32, and her sons, Juan Gutierrez-Salazar, 10, and Julian Cardona-Gutierrez, 7. Prosecutors had filed special-circumstance allegations that made the case death-eligible under California law, but the guilty plea brought an immediate sentence and a final judgment.

Prosecutors said Gutierrez-Salazar ended her roughly two-year relationship with Cardona on June 24, 2024, after he threatened to kill her. She then took her three sons to her father’s property in Stockton and spent the night in a fifth-wheel trailer parked there. At about 6:17 a.m. to 6:38 a.m. on June 25, firefighters were sent to Visalia Court near Harbor Street and found the trailer fully involved in flames. After crews knocked down the fire, they found Gutierrez-Salazar and two boys dead inside. A surviving teenage son told investigators he woke to a noise, saw Cardona in the residence and ran after him. As he fled, prosecutors said, he heard his mother yelling and saw the trailer consumed by fire.

Cardona pleaded guilty to three counts of first-degree murder and also admitted charges that included attempted murder, child abuse, arson and vandalism. Prosecutors said the fire damaged an adjacent residence as well as the trailer where the family was sleeping. Ron Freitas, the San Joaquin County district attorney, said in a statement that the plea secured “a measure of justice” for the victims while sparing their relatives a longer court process. Authorities have said the children who died were not Cardona’s biological sons. A surviving child escaped, but officials have released few public details about his injuries or whether he received medical treatment that morning. Court officials also have not publicly described every fact Cardona admitted beyond the plea itself.

The case drew attention in Stockton because it joined domestic violence allegations, arson and the deaths of children in a single attack. Officials said Gutierrez-Salazar had gone to her father’s home for safety after the breakup. That detail shaped the public understanding of the case from the start: prosecutors described the killings as an act that followed a threat made after the relationship ended. The fire also spread beyond the trailer, adding property damage in a neighborhood where residents were waking up for work and school. By the time the case reached its final stage in 2026, authorities had already spent months building a record that included arson findings, witness statements and the pursuit of a fugitive who was later found in Modesto.

The legal path changed over time. On June 28, 2024, prosecutors filed an arrest warrant charging Cardona with three murders, attempted murder and child endangerment. Authorities later announced special circumstances of multiple murder, arson and torture, exposing him to the state’s harshest penalties. He was arrested on July 11, 2024, in Modesto after a multijurisdictional manhunt, and he appeared in court days later without bail. His next major court milestone had originally been a preliminary hearing, but the case ended in February 2026 when he entered guilty pleas instead. The sentence was life in prison without the possibility of parole, and prosecutors said it was imposed the same day as the plea. No further trial dates remain.

Even with the conviction final, the human weight of the case remains in the brief public record. The most vivid account came from the teenage survivor, whose statement placed Cardona inside the trailer moments before the fire took over. Freitas said no sentence could bring back the mother and her children or erase the pain left for the surviving family. Federal and local authorities also emphasized the scope of the search that followed the fire, saying officers acted after a tip led them to a Modesto bus station where they believed Cardona was preparing to leave the area. That detail gave the case one last urgent turn before it moved from manhunt to courtroom.

For now, Cardona remains sentenced to life without parole, and the criminal case is no longer headed to trial. The next milestone, if any, would come through routine post-conviction filings rather than a scheduled public hearing.

Author note: Last updated March 24, 2026.