John Jefferson
Left: Karla Terron (Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department). Center: Juan Figueroa after his arrest (City of San Fernando/Instagram). Right: Terron seen at VFW bar in San Fernando on Dec. 16, 2022 (Karla Terron/Facebook).
More than a year and a half after a California woman was last seen alive at a VFW bar on a Friday night and found “engulfed in flames” in the early morning hours the next day near a freeway off-ramp in Bakersfield, investigators have arrested a murder suspect.
On Wednesday, officials in the City of San Fernando announced that the San Fernando Police Department and the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department conducted a “special operation” and arrested 30-year-old Juan Figueroa at a Knox Street residence in “connection with” 27-year-old Karla Terron’s murder.
In July, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department renewed calls for the public’s assistance in identifying who was responsible for the slaying of Terron, a mother to two sons who was stabbed multiple times, killed, and then set on fire after she left the bar, a VFW that was reportedly near where she worked as a waitress.
“On Saturday, December 17, 2022, at approximately 4:58 A.M, the body of Karla Terron was found engulfed in flames and deceased on southbound State route 99, at the Hosking Road off ramp in Bakersfield,” cops said. “An autopsy determined that her cause of death was due to multiple stab wounds. Victim Karla’s last known location alive was at a local bar (100 block of N Hagar Street) in the city of San Fernando.”
Authorities have said that, based on the presence of Terron’s DNA in a white 2021 Honda CR-V, someone put the victim’s body in the trunk of the vehicle and drove from San Fernando to Bakersfield, around an hour and a half drive away, before setting the remains on fire to destroy evidence of the crime.
The San Fernando Sun reportedly interviewed an unnamed neighbor who said that there “often seems to be trouble at that home” where Figueroa was arrested and that he has “heard about a lot of crazy things happening at that house over the years.”
“I don’t know anything else about it, and I don’t want to say any more,” the man reportedly added.
The publication noted that Terron also worked as a body shop receptionist and lived in Arleta with her sons. Terron’s family has long been demanding answers and justice for their loved one, one aunt saying her niece was a “good human being, a daughter, a mother, a mother of two children, [who] did not deserve to have this done to her.”
Los Angeles jail records reviewed by Law&Crime show that Figueroa is behind bars on a $1,000,000 bail and that he’s scheduled to appear in court on Friday morning.
KNBC reported that investigators said more arrests of “others” potentially involved in Terron’s death could be coming, but they have yet to shed light on a possible motive for the murder.
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