Inmate Is Charged in 1998 Slaying

A man who authorities say practiced Satanism was charged Friday in the murder of a Brea teen who has been missing since 1998.

Robert Anthony Marquez, 26, who is serving time in state prison on unrelated charges, has been charged in the killing of Brian Thorne, who was 16 when he was stabbed to death in Marquez’s yard in Rowland Heights, Los Angeles County sheriff’s officials said.

Family members reported Thorne missing on Jan. 13, 1998, after he failed to come home from an outing with friends, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy Steve Suzuki said.

Authorities said they had few leads and were stumped in their investigation until a witness recently called Brea police and told them what happened. Other witnesses corroborated the story and investigators called the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department.

Investigators said the group, most of whom went to the same high school in Brea, went to a taping of the television show “3rd Rock From the Sun.” They then gathered at Marquez’s home in the 19000 block of Newgarden Street in Rowland Heights, where Marquez told Thorne to follow him to the sideyard, authorities said.

Marquez, who has tattoos of satanic verses on his body, stabbed Thorne to death with a “military-style knife” before dismembering the body and dumping it behind a supermarket, Suzuki said. He added that investigators believe that Marquez’s practice of Satanism could be a motive for the killing.

Authorities said they have not recovered the body parts and believe they might have been discarded at a local landfill.

Marquez was convicted in 1998 of extortion and false imprisonment in Los Angeles in another case. He is an inmate at Chuckawalla Valley State Prison in Blythe.