INDIO, CA — A pool serviceman accused of fatally beating a 93-year-old Palm Desert woman during a robbery took steps to prevent forensic evidence from surfacing that might link him to the crime, a prosecutor said Wednesday.
Benjamin Cabrera Briones, 62, of Thousand Palms is charged with first-degree murder, burglary, forgery and special circumstance allegations of killing in the course of a robbery and murder for financial gain in the 2021 death of Jean Grace Willrich.
In her opening statement at the Larson Justice Center in Indio on Wednesday, Riverside County Deputy District Attorney Hawlee Valente told jurors that Briones attempted to keep from getting caught after Willrich’s death.
Valente said Briones wore latex gloves in the hours following the murder, including when he deposited the victim’s check at an ATM outside an Albertson’s supermarket in Palm Desert.
The gloves were “found in his work truck, marked with his company logo, Briones’ Pools,” the prosecutor said.
She said that after a search warrant was executed at the defendant’s residence, shoes, pants and other items of evidentiary value were seized. A notepad bearing names and addresses was also located, and “Willrich’s name and address were the only ones crossed out,” the deputy district attorney said.
Briones’ deputy public defender elected not to make an opening statement.
Willrich was killed on the afternoon of Nov. 29, 2021.
According to earlier statements by a pool serviceman hired by the victim after she fired Briones over a compensation dispute several years before, the witness went to the property on Nov. 30 and found things askew, including windows with blinds wide open and a hose running, causing an overflow on the east side of the house. He became concerned and attempted to make contact with Willrich unsuccessfully.
A concerned friend, Patricia McDonald, went to the house in the 77000 block of Michigan Drive and used a spare key to enter, finding the victim “laying in a puddle of dried blood, her face swollen,” according to trial testimony.
“She was cold to the touch,” McDonald said.
Sheriff’s Sgt. Jeff Cryder testified that after he was called to the property, he initially thought the victim might have been injured accidentally, but on further examination realized it “was a suspicious death.”
The defendant went to Willrich’s property on Nov. 29, 2021, ostensibly to see if he could repair one of her toilets. Sheriff’s Investigator Gustavo Castaneda said detectives later learned from interviews with Briones he never intended to provide a service, but rather wanted to commit theft.
“Mr. Briones stated Ms. Willrich let him in and eventually, when he started looking around, a confrontation started, and that’s when he proceeded to assault her,” Castaneda testified during a 2023 preliminary hearing. “Mr. Briones explained to us how he punched her, choked her and eventually got on top of her. He continued to punch her, hit her with both open and closed fists because she wouldn’t stop screaming. When she stopped moving, he got up, grabbed (her) checks and left.”
Detectives soon confirmed that property had been taken, and that one of Willrich’s checks had been deposited at the Albertson’s ATM.
Security surveillance video images were examined, and authorities identified Briones as the person who cashed the check, Castaneda said, adding that security videotape from homes around the victim’s property showed that on Nov. 29, the defendant had parked there, gone inside and returned to his pickup a short time later.
Briones was arrested without incident on Dec. 3, 2021, during a traffic stop near Bob Hope and Frank Sinatra drives in Rancho Mirage.
He has no documented prior felony convictions recorded in Riverside County and is being held without bail at the Benoit Detention Center.
