Hortensia Chavez wrote letters each time Reed came up for parole, but like the others was not aware of his recent hearing in time to make the deadline. Also a friend of the Carranza family, Chavez said, “I’m so glad that Reed is being kept in prison, he’s a danger, a menace.”Many that knew the Carranzas and Reeds are gone, but some remember the day at Santa Paula’s then courthouse when Reed was brought in for the arraignment. The ominous crowd was silent and although police reinforcements were called in there was no trouble, just hard stares at the small man who had created such misery for a family and entire town.Many in the crowd told the newspapers, others and even themselves that the justice system would take care of Reed, an eye for an eye, his life for that of young Joyce’s. But Lyman Smith, an up and coming Santa Paula criminal lawyer who had been appointed to take the case, found a loophole that kept Reed from the death sentence, the Miranda Decision. The relatively new law that mandated that suspects under arrest be informed of their right to a lawyer had been overlooked in the hours of interrogation leading up to Reed’s confession.Smith took his responsibility seriously, fighting all the way up to the State Supreme Court; in the shadow of the court’s prior decisions in similar cases a deal was cut: life in prison in exchange for a guilty plea from Reed. But Reed, who never really spoke in court, made one last bid for freedom just days before his October 20, 1964 sentencing hearing. He somehow smuggled a letter out claiming to be an anonymous sender who had murdered Carranza by accident, but the ploy failed.Reed’s family was soon gone, the decades burying their whereabouts and what became of Calvin’s troubled younger brother, who was evaluated for 90 days at Camarillo State Hospital; the brother had shortly been a suspect in the murder his 22-year-old brother committed.There are some women in Santa Paula who believe that they were called by Reed, subjected to the same type of obscene and threatening phone calls he was arrested for in the year prior to Joyce’s murder.Lorine Riddle, who had a gut feeling after she encountered Reed at Joyce’s gravesite hours after the girl was laid to rest, suffered in the weeks following her telling her boss at the Santa Paula Chronicle that she suspected Reed was the killer. Riddle received supportive letters and phone calls, but there were those communications that accused her of being a “middling biddy” who had turned Reed in for the reward money.Lyman Smith also received phone calls including death threats for representing Reed, a case he didn’t ask for but the one that established his reputation as a top-flight attorney. On the March morning in 1980 that it was expected that Smith would be appointed to a judgeship, Lyman and his wife Charlene were discovered murdered in the bedroom of their Ventura home, the work of a serial killer still not known.Listed on a prisoner rights Web site is Calvin Ray Reed. Much of the information provided, including his height, weight and even his race is incorrect, but his date of birth, custody date and projected release date – LIFE – is correct.“Seeking: Open To All” reads the listing. “Lifer since 1964….”Free Will Baptist is listed as Reed’s religion and he notes that “I was married but divorced now….” Perhaps Reed’s last glimpse of his then 16-year-old wife Connie and his two children, the girl born within weeks of the murder of Joyce Carranza, was the day he was led away to prison.Reed and Connie lived just steps from the high school campus where Joyce was abducted. Reed had come home for lunch from his job at the Briggs Packing House the day Joyce died.On the prisoner pen pal Web site under “Interests”, Reed, an inmate for more than 40 years, lists “horses, drawing & making cards, auto racing, model crafts.”“I would like to emphatically stand behind my opposition to the release of convicted murderer Calvin Reed for parole,” SPPD Chief Bob Gonzales - who knew Joyce and the Carranza family – wrote in his recent letter to the parole board. “The crime committed by this man still ranks as one of the most heinous in the history of our community. As is the case in most small towns, we in Santa Paula have always been closely knit.”Chief Gonzales wrote “The abduction, rape, and murder of 12 year old Joyce Carranza was a tragedy that still affects many people to this day. Many members of the family of Joyce Carranza still live in our city, and the release Calvin Reed would only serve to reopen their wounds. The fact that Calvin Reed abducted then brutally and savagely tortured this young girl while on her way to school will always be with those who suffered with the family and friends of Joyce Carranza.”
Part 3: Calvin Reed denied parole for 1964 murder of Joyce Carranza
March 25, 2005
Santa Paula News
This time even family members were not aware that Calvin Ray Reed, who admitted to the rape and murder of 12-year-old Joyce Carranza in 1964, was having a February 25 parole hearing at Pleasant Valley State Prison in Coalinga.
By Peggy KellySanta Paula TimesThis time even family members were not aware that Calvin Ray Reed, who admitted to the rape and murder of 12-year-old Joyce Carranza in 1964, was having a February 25 parole hearing at Pleasant Valley State Prison in Coalinga.Over the years Reed’s scheduled parole hearings prompted letter writing by many Santa Paulans who objected to Reed being released from prison. Santa Paula Police Chief Bob Gonzales, who knew Joyce, and a county prosecutor, who never knew the girl so many people remember fondly, wrote letters to the parole board urging that Reed remain incarcerated.Reed’s parole was denied, according to Ventura County District Attorney Greg Totten. “We are pleased with the parole board decision, it was the right decision,” said DA Totten. “It was an exceptionally depraved and horrible crime and in my judgement Reed should never be paroled.”Now 63 years old, Reed will not have another parole hearing until 2010. Reed ignored a 2004 written request for an interview, instead turning over the missive to his cellmate, also sentenced to life in prison and who wrote that he committed multiple murders. Reed already has a pen pal, his cellmate added.Debbie Carranza Lopez is a widow living in Bakersfield who was 16 when her younger sister, the baby of the family, was abducted just steps from Joyce’s summer arts and crafts class at Santa Paula Union High School. Her brother, Ronnie Carranza, was 15 in 1964 and now lives in Oregon.What Lopez remembers most about Joyce was her “beautiful smile, she was very friendly, just a good person. Joyce was the baby…that makes it even harder sometimes.”Lopez said the family never really learned the circumstances leading up to Joyce’s murder: “We’ve never been told, they didn’t tell us how they assumed it might have happened, but my sister was not the type to get into a car with someone.”The last time Lopez saw her sister, “I called to see if I could get her a ride to school” from their Lucada Street home. “Joyce said she was going to walk to her friend’s house. Mom came home later,” where relatives from Los Angeles were waiting. “Mom said ‘Where’s your sister?’ We went to the school and started to look around…the last time I saw Joyce she was walking to school.”Joyce’s death was hard enough, but the “circumstances” of her being raped and strangled, discovered later that night in the Santa Clara River, made the loss “overwhelming” as well as life changing. “Even with my own children and now my (13) grandchildren, when they are a little late I think the worst,” said Lopez. “I make sure they know what is around them, Joyce’s death made me more leery of people. I try to be more trusting,” but Lopez has never been able to shake the nagging thought of “You don’t know, you just don’t know….”Her parents died when they were too young, her father already suffering from a serious heart condition when Joyce was killed.Lopez said that learning of Reed’s parole hearing prompted much thought about the murderer of her sweet-natured sister. “He never asked us to forgive him, he never said he was sorry during the trial, he never felt any compassion that I’ve ever heard. I would be afraid” for the safety of others if Reed was released.At the time Joyce was murdered it seemed safer somehow, said Lopez. “Who would have thought that something like that could happen? I just hope it never happens to anyone, it’s so tragic, so hard on our family.”Joyce’s murder changed many lives on many levels. “It’s when I got involved in the political process,” said Angela Dominguez, who knew the Carranza family.In the late 1960s, she received help from a variety of people - including Les Maland and Henry Vela - in petitioning the state to ensure that Reed would never be released. “Many people worked to make sure he never got out,” said Dominguez. “I asked the Carranzas what can I do for you, and they said make sure he never gets out of prison.”
