Body of Oakland woman killed by boyfriend 18 years ago found

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — The body of a missing Oakland woman killed nearly 18 years ago by her then-boyfriend was found by construction workers in a shallow grave, authorities said.

Cynthia Alonzo, then 48, was last seen getting into the car of Eric Mora on Thanksgiving Day 2004. Alonzo and her then-boyfriend were going to her mother’s house in San Francisco but she was never seen again, the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office said in a statement Wednesday.

On May 4, a work crew at the corner of 7th and Maritime streets on the Oakland Army Base uncovered a body wrapped in tarps in a shallow grave. The Alameda County Coroner’s Office conducted an autopsy and confirmed it was Alonzo’s body.

Mora was tried and convicted of second-degree murder in March of 2012 and sentenced to 15 years to life. In March 2016, his case was returned to Alameda County for trial and in October of that year Mora confessed to killing Alonzo and provided the general location of her buried body but an extensive search by officials couldn’t find it, the office said.

Mora was sentenced in June 2017 to 11 years in state prison.