‘Blurry pictures’ are only clues in decade-old homicide. Family searches for answers
Every year on the anniversary of his death, Mark McRorie’s two sons and other family members write letters to him, tuck them inside balloons and release them from his grave site at Lakewood Memorial Park.
“We try to keep his memory alive as much as possible,” said his widow, Brandy Ochoa.
Marcus McRorie Jr., 16, has some memories of his father, who was fatally stabbed outside a bar in Empire on March 6, 2010.
“He remembers riding in the car with him and the hugs,” Ochoa said. “He has memories of a good dad. But my baby, all he knows is what we tell him.”
The couple’s youngest, Jordan McRorie, was only a year old when his father died. Jordan asks more questions about him as the years pass, but he doesn’t know that his father was killed and that the perpetrators were never caught.
McRorie was out with friends at Antonio’s Bar and Grill on Yosemite Boulevard — which has since closed — when he stepped outside to take a phone call, Ochoa said.
At some point, he apparently got into an altercation with two men in the parking lot. Surveillance video didn’t capture the incident but shows the men running from the scene and McRorie stumbling and clutching his side before collapsing by a door.
It wasn’t until someone tried to get out that door and found it blocked by McRorie’s body that police were notified, said Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Detective David Hickman.
McRorie was rushed to a hospital, where he underwent surgery; he died the next day.
Ten years later, detectives have “just blurry pictures of two men” to go on, Hickman said. He’s the third detective to be assigned the case as others have left the homicide unit throughout the years.
He said people at the bar were interviewed, but no one saw anything. The closest thing detectives had to a lead since then was a Crime Stoppers tip in 2013 that turned out to be unrelated.
Ochoa said there was no indication the suspects were ever in the bar, and there could have been a third suspect who was driving. She said detectives think the suspects knew McRorie, but she doesn’t recognize them.
At the time, detectives said they believed the suspects were gang members but that McRorie was not involved with gangs.
Ochoa’s mother, Rhonda Webber, said McRorie wasn’t perfect, but he worked hard for his family and he adored his sons.
“The day (his first son) was born, he went out and got a job digging ditches,” she said.
He went on to work at Bronco Wine Co., then at Foster Farms. His income, along with Ochoa’s, helped move the family from a trailer in Ceres to a small home in south Turlock, then to a bigger home in a nicer part of town just before his death, Webber said.
Ochoa and her sons moved again since then, but she has kept their new home full of pictures of McRorie.
“I have pictures up of him right outside their bedroom so every day when they get up, they see him,” Ochoa said.
On the 10th anniversary of McRorie’s death Saturday, some of the balloons began to pop while they were being inflated. Jordan started laughing.
“He thought it was a funny joke, that his dad was causing us all to get startled,” Ochoa said. “It was right up (McRorie’s) alley to scare us all when we’re in the middle of something deep. He was always a joker and always tried to lighten the mood.”
Jordan wrote about the popping balloons in his letter.
Marcus Jr. wrote about the difficulties of the past year and that he hoped his father would watch out for his mother.
The letters are “becoming a really good outlet for him,” Ochoa said.
A few years ago, Ochoa told Marcus Jr. the details of McRorie’s death.
“My oldest is aware of the fact that someone took his dad from us, and I have to say we don’t know who,” she said. “Our youngest just knows that his dad died, that his liver started bleeding and we couldn’t stop it. I told him we’d tell him more as he got older.”
She hopes that by sharing his story, someone might finally come forward with information leading to an arrest.
“It bothers me that we don’t have any closure, and I don’t want (my sons) to feel like that when they are grown,” Ochoa said.
At the time of the homicide, the suspects were described as Latinos in their early to mid-20s. One suspect was of medium height with a medium build and a mustache. The other had a heavy build and was several inches taller. One of the suspects appeared to have a tattoo on his left forearm.
Anyone with information about McRorie’s death is asked to contact Detective Hickman at 209-525-7042.
Tips also may be made to Stanislaus Area Crime Stoppers at 209-521-4636 or www.stancrimetips.org. Tipsters can remain anonymous and may be eligible for a cash reward.
This story was originally published March 11, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
