Accused killer of 3 used one of the bodies for target practice, Fresno deputy testifies
Chilling details emerged Monday from the preliminary hearing for a Fresno County man charged with murdering three people and burying two of the bodies on the Squaw Valley property where he lived.
Buford King, 36, is accused of killing Donnie Lee, 62, Aleksey Shelest, 35, and Alberto Contreras, 51. If convicted, King would face life in prison without the possibility of parole or the death penalty.
Judge Adolfo M. Corona ruled late Monday afternoon that there was enough evidence to try King for the killings.
Homicide detective Jose Diaz, with the Fresno County Sheriff’s Office, testified Monday that King admitted to all three of the killings, even drawing a map to where he buried Contreras in a Tulare County orchard.
Diaz testified that none of the killings were directly related to each other and may have been triggered by a sense of outrage over people the defendant believed hurt women or children. Still, those allegations against the victims themselves have not been substantiated,
Contreras was King’s first alleged known victim. He was strangled to death in 2010 and his body was used by the defendant for target practice afterward, Diaz testified.
King was living in Tulare County at the time and was visiting his girlfriend in Visalia when he heard a commotion in one of the small apartments in her complex.
Diaz testified King went to check out what was happening and saw inside an apartment what looked like Contreras assaulting a young woman. King asked to be let in, but Contreras refused. King kicked in the door and began to scuffle with the man. King hit Contreras in the face several times, with little impact.
“He then grabbed the gentleman with his right had and started choking him until he went unconscious,” Diaz testified. “He continued to strangle him until the gentleman stopped moving.”
King left the apartment but came back a short time later to retrieve the body. He drove it to his home in the 16000 block of Avenue 264 in Visalia where he dug a hole and buried it in an orchard, Diaz said.
But King also did something unusual before burying the body. He used it for target practice.
“He propped it up on a tree stump and shot the victim in the face and chest, then put the body in the hole,” Diaz said.
Contreras’s disappearance and death remained unsolved for nearly a decade, until King told detectives about the killing.
It was a missing person investigation in the Squaw Valley area that lead detectives to question King after two men he knew disappeared. King had moved into the area and was living on five acres.
Also living on the property was Lee, who disappeared on Nov. 1, 2016. Shelest was last heard from on May 18, 2016.
Diaz testified that when detectives first questioned King in 2016, he denied knowing anything about the two men. The investigation turned cold until 2019, when they got a tip that would reignite the case.
King’s ex-girlfriend came forward and spoke at length with detectives about the killings and the defendant’s alleged involvement.
She told detectives King had threatened her life and she was afraid of him.
Diaz testified that King had told his girlfriend in conversation that Aleksey Shelest was buried in a hole on the property.
Prosecutor Liz Owen asked the detective, “Did she think he was being truthful?”
Diaz replied, “It appeared to me that she wasn’t sure. She said Mr. King had a back hoe and that he had dug at least three separate holes including one on the property next door.”
The ex-girlfriend told detectives Shelest was shot inside the hole King had dug. Lee was killed on the property with a shotgun blast to the head. He too was buried.
Diaz testified that King told him during an interview that he did not like Shelest because he allegedly sexually assaulted someone.
“He had a poor opinion of people who are rapists or anyone who was doing harm to a child,” Diaz said.
Diaz said King never fully explained why he shot Lee.
When they unearthed the men, they found personal items belonging to them including a wallet, identification card, a cell phone and dentures.
Investigators were also able to identify Lee’s remains by a tattoo of a heart he had over his chest. Written above the heart was his daughter Jessica’s name.
