‘I feel like I am next’: California shooting victim had reported troubling incidents to police
Over the course of several months, Zobeyda “Zoe” Esquerra’s stalker pounded on her door and window in the middle of the night and vandalized her car. He smashed her vehicle’s window, let the air out of its tires, poured acetone on the paint and, finally, used a road flare to set it on fire.
“I feel like I am next,” she told a Livingston police officer in October.
On Tuesday night, Esquerra was in the parking lot of the O’Reilly Auto Parts store on Geer Road in Turlock, waiting to pick up her boyfriend from work, when a man walked up to her and shot her multiple times, killing her.
Juan Francisco Ibarra-Tapia, the same man who was arrested for stalking Esquerra last year, has been charged with her murder.
According to court documents that detail the incidents last year, Esquerra, 22, and Ibarra-Tapia, 23, met working at the O’Reilly store in Livingston in February 2021.
Esquerra told police they became close friends and she often spent time at his parents’ home, where he and his siblings lived.
She said she told him from the very beginning she wasn’t interested in a romantic relationship with him, but he began persistently pursuing her last summer, according to documents.
“She said that he told her that he loved her and she said she didn’t want that and it made her feel uncomfortable,” court documents read.
She said Ibarra-Tapia would just tell her that “it takes time for someone to fall in love with someone” and that “he couldn’t help how he was feeling.’’
Esquerra told police Ibarra-Tapia began giving her money, although she didn’t ask for it. The money was mostly for vehicle repairs like new paint and windows for damage she later learned was allegedly caused by him.
“It sounds like he may have been vandalizing her car so that he could ‘save her’ and pay for the repairs,” a Livingston police officer wrote in a report.
Eventually, she began to suspect Ibarra-Tapia was behind the acts of vandalism and stalking. Her suspicions were confirmed Oct. 9, when someone broke a window on her mother’s vehicle and threw a lit road flare inside. The same thing had happened to Esquerra’s vehicle just a few days before.
Later in the day, some of Esquerra’s family and friends followed Ibarra-Tapia as he followed Esquerra. When they stopped, the family members confronted Ibarra-Tapia.
According to court documents, Ibarra-Tapia agreed to let them look through his vehicle. They looked in his wallet and found 11 pieces of paper, most of which contained information about Esquerra and her family, including phone numbers and license plate numbers. They called the police.
He gave multiple statements to investigators, first saying that unknown people were making him stalk her and had threatened harm to his family if he didn’t. He later admitted to committing the acts on his own. He said he was in love with Esquerra and felt manipulated by her.
“Juan told me his intentions were not to hurt anyone,” an officer wrote in his report.
Ibarra-Tapia agreed to give the officer the remaining road flares he had at his home and to write Esquerra an apology letter.
According to court documents, he wrote, “I will like to apologize for the things I’ve done to you but I will not get involve in your life and I will like to help pay for the damages I’ve done and go our separate ways.”
Ibarra-Tapia was arrested and charged with stalking, vandalism and two counts of arson of property. His parents, who have declined to comment about the case, bailed him out of jail the next day, according to Esquerra’s sister, Cinthya Venegas.
Esquerra obtained an emergency protective order but it eventually expired.
After that, Ibarra-Tapia still would follow her around town and message mutual acquaintances to get information about her, according to Venegas. She said there were no more acts of vandalism, though, and no sign of violence until Tuesday, when Ibarra-Tapia allegedly followed Esquerra to Turlock and shot her multiple times.
Ibarra-Tapia drove away and was chased by Turlock police. He crashed into the fence of a home and then ran from the vehicle, prompting a multi-agency manhunt. Ibarra-Tapia eventually was found hiding in a bush in a nearby neighborhood.
He is being held at Stanislaus County jail on suspicion of murder, two counts of attempted murder and evading. The Stanislaus County District Attorney’s Office reported Thursday morning that Ibarra-Tapia’s arraignment is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. Thursday in Stanislaus Superior Court.
