Left inset: Melanie Camacho. Right inset: Vicente Jasso (Madera County Sheriff’s Office). Background: The AutoZone in Madera, Calif., where Melanie Camacho was last seen before being murdered by her ex-boyfriend Vicente Jasso (Google Maps).
The ex-boyfriend of a California teen who went missing after leaving her job at AutoZone — and then turned up dead in an orchard three days later — has been found guilty of murdering her.
Vicente Jasso, who was 23 when he was arrested for Melanie Camacho’s 2023 death, was convicted Wednesday of murder with special circumstances of kidnapping and robbery, according to online court records viewed by Law&Crime. He was found guilty by a Madera County jury and now faces life in prison.
A second suspect, Jose Lopez-Hernandez, who was Jasso’s friend, was sentenced to three years in prison in February 2025 after he pleaded guilty to a felony charge of accessory after the fact. He has since been released.
According to a police statement, Camacho — whose cause of death has never been revealed publicly — was last seen “leaving her work” at an AutoZone on Gateway Drive in Madera around 10:15 p.m. on November 24, 2023.
“Around 11 p.m., Melanie sent a text message to her mom letting her know she planned to meet with a friend after work,” the statement said. “When she was not home the following morning, Melanie’s mother reported her missing around 6:45 a.m.”
Surveillance footage and witness interviews pinpointed Camacho, 19, leaving her job at AutoZone in her 2014 white Nissan Altima, which was spotted on the roadway near her job around 10:30 p.m., just a half hour before her mother received the text from her saying she planned to meet “with a friend.”
“Detectives spoke with the friend [Camacho] told her mom she’d be meeting, who reported they never met after work, but rather Melanie planned to meet with an ‘ex’ to either give or receive something,” the police statement said.
Police reported that Jasso and Camacho dated for a few months but had broken up days before Thanksgiving 2023. Jasso has a criminal background that includes a history of domestic abuse dating back to 2016, Fresno ABC affiliate KFSN reported.
Within two hours of Camacho’s mother reporting her missing, police received a call about a car on fire in the area. It was Camacho’s.
Witnesses told police they saw a blue Ford Mustang with a black hood being driven around the same area where her car was found. Queuing up surveillance footage, police said they were able to determine that the Mustang belonged to Lopez-Hernandez.
Lopez-Hernandez was brought in for questioning that night and police executed a search warrant on his home shortly afterward.
The warrant led them to the orchard where Camacho was found, located near a rural highway.
By then, police said they had made Jasso their primary suspect.
Officers spotted him around 7 a.m. the following day driving around Madera in a minivan. California Highway Patrol attempted to stop him and a chase got underway, with Jasso traveling at speeds in excess of 110 miles per hour, according to The Fresno Bee.
Police said that they saw Jasso tossing some of Camacho’s belongings, including her driver’s license, from his car window during the chase.
Jasso was finally stopped thanks to a spike strip that blew out his tires. He managed to escape on foot briefly and hid in a residential neighborhood but was ultimately captured with the help of a police helicopter.
Police have said that Jasso has a criminal history dating back to 2016, with prior arrests for witness intimidation, domestic violence, evading, and reckless driving. He’s due to be sentenced for Camacho’s murder on April 16.
