Quick Take
After a nearly three-month trial, a Santa Cruz jury ruled Wednesday that Adrian Gonzalez, convicted in the 2015 rape and murder of 8-year-old neighbor Madyson Middleton, should not be released after aging out of the juvenile justice system.
A Santa Cruz County Superior Court jury ruled Wednesday that Adrian Gonzalez should not be released from custody, nearly 10 years after he raped and murdered 8-year-old Madyson Middleton at the Tannery Arts Center complex in July 2015.
The jury ruled that prosecutor and Deputy Chief District Attorney Tara George proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Gonzalez is still a danger to the community and not suitable for release. The ruling comes after a nearly three-month trial, including breaks for holidays, that saw testimony from psychologists, investigators and even Gonzalez himself as he made a bid for freedom.
Gonzalez was set for release in October, when he aged out of the juvenile justice system upon reaching his 25th birthday, but the Santa Cruz County District Attorney’s Office challenged his release. That prompted a three-week hearing last summer to determine whether he is sufficiently rehabilitated or continues to pose a threat to the public.
In early August, Santa Cruz County Superior Court Judge Denine Guy ruled that prosecutors had successfully shown that there was probable cause for a jury trial to determine whether Gonzalez should continue to be held in custody. She could have ordered his release instead.
When Gonzalez was first arrested, prosecutors first wanted to try Gonzalez as an adult, but were barred from doing so by Senate Bill 1391, a California state law that prohibits the prosecution of people under the age of 16 as adults. The bill faced numerous challenges, stalling Gonzalez’s case. The California Supreme Court ultimately upheld the bill in early 2021, finally allowing the case to move forward.
As the court clerk read the verdict Wednesday, a number of people in the crowded courtroom let out relieved sighs and an emphatic “yes!” escaped a few others. Laura Jordan, Middleton’s mother, briefly shed tears as she hugged friends sitting beside her and received comforting pats from those behind her. Gonzalez remained quiet and largely expressionless as he had for the majority of the trial.
The sense of relief spilled into the hallway outside of the courtroom as Jordan continued exchanging hugs with supporters and friends. A friend of Middleton’s family, Greg Paroff, told Gonzalez to take his own life as the audience filed out of the courtroom. While Jordan declined to comment, Paroff told Lookout that he could no longer feel bad for Gonzalez’s childhood misfortunes.
“One of the things that I am angriest about is that he robbed me of my ability to be compassionate for the terrible things that happened to him,” he said.
Paroff also said that he strongly opposes SB 1391, as he believes that it “imposes a greater sentence on the family than on the convict.”
“The best-case scenario now is that in two years, we’ll do this again, and then again two years after that,” he said.
Regardless, Paroff said the verdict does provide a sense of relief, and said that he was considering making a plan if Gonzalez had been released — and still, he hopes to find out if it’s possible to keep Gonzalez away from the Tannery Arts Center, the apartment complex where Middleton and Gonzalez lived and where he committed the crime.
“I’d like to find out if it’s possible to get a restraining order for him at the Tannery Arts Center, he said, “because if some day he is released, he could just show up.”
Paroff wasn’t the only one who said they were upset with SB 1391 and its impact on this case. Santa Cruz County District Attorney Jeff Rosell called it “the worst piece of legislation that I’ve ever seen” and said it needs to be changed.
“For the first time citizens of our community have seen what this means, and I think they’re outraged,” he said. Rosell said that district attorney’s offices across the state raised alarm over the bill. Initially, Proposition 57, passed by voters in 2016, gave judges the power to determine whether a person under 16 could be tried as an adult — which the passage of SB 1391 undid.
Rosell said that Gonzalez would again be up for release in 2026. If the county probation department does not petition his release, as it did in 2024, he will be released. Should the probation department petition once again, Rosell said that the process would likely look very similar to this most recent one.
“Unless something changes in the law,” he said, “which would be a phenomenally good idea.”
Prosecutor and Deputy Chief District Attorney Tara George said that the case was extremely difficult, and that it’s clear the community is still feeling the effects of the crime nearly a decade later.
“This was the first trial that we’ve had on this issue, and this was really a tireless effort on behalf of the jurors,” she said. “All we can do is present our information to the jury and hope that we did it in a concise way to reach their appropriate verdict, and hopefully I did that.”
Gonzalez will return to the secure youth track facility in Sonoma, where he has been undergoing treatment since 2023. His attorney, Charlie Stevens, declined to comment on the verdict.
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