The man who was in an ‘illegal relationship’ was arrested for murdering his pregnant 16-year-old girlfriend, who vanished in 2019

For years, the case of Victoria Marquina sat in that painful space between suspicion and proof, where a family knows something terrible happened but still has to wake up every day without answers, without a body, and without the certainty that anyone will ever be held fully accountable.

Now, according to reporting from ABC 7 Chicago’s Cecil Hannibal and CBS News Sacramento’s Charlie Lapastora, prosecutors say that wait has finally produced a major turn. Joshua Anthony Martinez, the man authorities say was in an unlawful relationship with the missing teenager, has now been indicted and charged with her murder, along with other felony offenses tied to the case.

The arrest does not close the story, because Victoria’s body still has not been found. But it does mark the first real courtroom step in a case that has haunted her family since she vanished in October 2019, pregnant and only 16 years old.

That is the detail that keeps landing hardest. She was not only a missing teenager. She was also carrying a child, which means this case has always involved two lives lost to the same act of violence, even if investigators are still trying to recover the remains.

A Teen Girl Vanished, And Her Family Was Left In Limbo

In his report, Cecil Hannibal said the case dates back more than six years, to the moment Victoria Marquina was last seen in Sutter Creek. Investigators say her mother reported her missing in October 2019 after what authorities described as a short relationship with Joshua Martinez, who was 21 years old at the time.

Charlie Lapastora, reporting for CBS News Sacramento, filled in more of the emotional and factual backdrop by speaking with Blanca Valencia, Victoria’s mother, who has carried the uncertainty of this case ever since her daughter disappeared.

Valencia’s words, as Lapastora presented them, sound like the words of a mother who has had to live in two realities at once, one where she knows something terrible happened, and another where she has had to keep hope alive because there was never a body, never a burial, and never a final goodbye.

She told Lapastora that she still believes in justice and still holds onto hope, even now. She said that by this point, her daughter should have graduated and become a fulfilled young woman with a future in front of her. Instead, she said, someone cut that future off.

That is not just grief speaking. It is the frustration of a family that has had to measure time not by birthdays or milestones, but by years since the disappearance.

Prosecutors Say Martinez Now Faces Murder Charges

Both Hannibal and Lapastora report that Martinez has now been formally charged, and the seriousness of those charges leaves no doubt about where prosecutors believe the case stands.

Hannibal said Martinez was indicted and arrested by U.S. Marshals on four felony counts, including murder, and quoted San Joaquin County District Attorney Ron Freitas, who said Martinez faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.

Lapastora added that Martinez, who had once been arrested in connection with Victoria’s disappearance and later released, is now back in custody and facing murder charges along with alleged sex-crime offenses involving the teen. His report also made clear that this new arrest is the result of a long-running cold case effort that kept pushing long after the case first appeared to stall.

That matters because cold cases do not solve themselves with time. They are solved because investigators refuse to let them die, even when years pass without a dramatic break.

Freitas emphasized exactly that point in both reports. In Hannibal’s piece, he said that to family members of cold-case victims, authorities will never stop pursuing justice. In Lapastora’s report, he directed a sharper message at offenders themselves, saying anyone who thinks time will erase a heinous act is wrong.

Those are the kinds of statements prosecutors often make, but here they carry extra weight because this case had already lasted long enough for some people to assume it might never move.

The Relationship Was Always At The Center Of The Case

One of the most troubling parts of the story, and one that neither report tries to soften, is the nature of the relationship between Martinez and Victoria.

Lapastora said Martinez was in what authorities described as an unlawful dating relationship with Victoria, who was 16 when she disappeared. Hannibal similarly noted that investigators tied her disappearance to what they described as a short relationship with Martinez, who was 21 at the time.

That age gap matters legally, morally, and emotionally. It changes how the case is understood, not just as a missing-person investigation, but as a situation in which a vulnerable teenage girl was already entangled with an adult man long before prosecutors say she was killed.

Lapastora also reported that Victoria was last seen alive near where she worked in Amador County on October 9, 2019, and that she was reported missing the following day. Two days later, her car was found abandoned in Escalon.

That sequence creates the kind of timeline that has likely lived in her mother’s mind for years, every stop and every date carrying the same unbearable question: where did she go after that, and what exactly happened in those final hours?

Now prosecutors appear to believe they finally know enough to put one man in the defendant’s chair.

What Changed After Six Years?

That is the obvious question, and both Hannibal and Lapastora show that authorities know the public is asking it.

Hannibal pressed investigators on what had changed after six years without charges. Was there new evidence? Did something finally break open? District Attorney Ron Freitas answered carefully, saying they were not going to get into specifics at this time, but described the progress as the result of “dogged tirelessness” in the investigation, a matter of dotting every “i” and crossing every “t.”

That is a classic prosecutor’s answer, careful enough not to damage a pending case, but revealing in one important way. It suggests this was not one miracle clue arriving out of nowhere. It was likely the product of accumulated investigative work, agency coordination, and a slow effort to build something strong enough to survive in court.

Lapastora’s report gives that explanation more shape by noting that the case was taken up through a San Joaquin County cold case task force, a newer effort that began focusing on unsolved crimes like Victoria’s. That likely helps explain why the case, dormant in public for so long, has suddenly surged back into motion.

In other words, time alone did not solve this. People did.

And that should be one of the few encouraging parts of this story, because families in cold cases often fear the exact opposite, that after enough years, everyone quietly moves on except the people still waiting for their loved one.

The Most Painful Part Is Still Unresolved

For all the significance of the indictment, one brutal fact remains unchanged: Victoria Marquina’s body has still not been found.

That detail sits at the center of both reports and changes the emotional meaning of everything else. A murder charge brings accountability closer, but it does not bring the kind of closure families are usually promised when an arrest is announced.

Freitas, in Hannibal’s report, said authorities want to bring closure to Victoria’s mother and allow her to bury both her child and her grandchild. Lapastora quoted him making a direct appeal to the public, saying investigators are looking for the remains of Victoria and her unborn child and need anyone with information to come forward.

That appeal tells you all you need to know about where the case still stands. Prosecutors believe they can proceed with the murder charges, but the family is still missing the one thing that makes grief less suspended: the ability to bring her home.

Valencia’s comments in Lapastora’s report bring that pain into focus more than any official statement could. She pleaded for anyone who knows something, heard something, or knows where her daughter is to speak up. She also warned other parents to watch over their daughters carefully, because, as she put it, there are people out there you do not know.

That may be the line that cuts deepest in the whole story. After all these years, a mother is still trying to protect other families from the same nightmare that swallowed hers.

A Mother’s Hope Has Outlasted The Silence

There is something quietly devastating about the way Blanca Valencia speaks in Lapastora’s report. She is not only asking for justice. She is still speaking about hope.

She says only God has kept her standing and that she still believes one day she will see her daughter again. Even now, after years of silence, after the car was found, after the suspect was arrested and released once before, after all the waiting and all the uncertainty, she has not entirely surrendered the language of reunion.

That is the kind of hope that exists in unresolved cases because families are not given the ordinary rituals of loss. When there is no body, grief does not get to settle. It remains restless.

The indictment may begin to change that, at least partly. It says the justice system now believes it has enough to formally accuse one man of taking Victoria’s life. It does not yet answer every question, but it tells her family they were not forgotten.

And after this many years, that matters.

Justice Has Started Moving, But The Story Is Not Finished

Taken together, the reporting from Cecil Hannibal and Charlie Lapastora paints a picture of a case that has finally broken loose after years of frustration, but still carries a painful incompleteness.

A 16-year-old pregnant girl disappeared. The man authorities say was in an unlawful relationship with her has now been charged with murder. Prosecutors say they will keep pushing. Her mother is still begging for information. And somewhere, investigators hope, there is still a place that will finally tell them where Victoria and her unborn child were left.

That is why this arrest feels both major and unfinished.

For the public, the headline is that a suspect has finally been indicted. For the family, the deeper reality is that justice is only beginning, and even now, one of the most basic acts of love remains impossible. They still cannot bury her.

Until that changes, this case will remain what it has always been: not just a criminal prosecution, but a long, heartbreaking search for a daughter who should have been here all along.