Manuel Adrian Salceda is charged with murder after Javier Becerril Jr. was found dead in a Tesla trunk on Highway 152.

The murder charge is the prosecution's case at the start, not a finding that Salceda shot Becerril or planned the death. ABC30 puts the arrest at a Woodland gas station, the Merced Sun-Star puts it in Dublin on Oct. 11, and KSBW's account of the CHP says detectives tracked a vehicle across the Bay Area that day and arrested him at a gas station on Road 8 near Interstate 5 in Woodland. A 2010 conviction the district attorney described is a closed case, and it does not decide this one.

The California Highway Patrol and Merced County District Attorney Nicole Silveira held a press conference Wednesday morning, Oct. 21, 2026, in Atwater to announce the arrest of Manuel Adrian Salceda, 39, of Turlock, in the death of Javier Becerril Jr., the Merced Sun-Star reported. Becerril, 42, of Hollister, was a DoorDash driver. The Sun-Star reported Salceda is charged with murder and other enhancement charges. The paper did not name the enhancements. ABC30 Fresno reported he made his first court appearance Tuesday. KSBW, citing the CHP, reported he was arraigned that day on a murder charge in Merced County Superior Court.

Becerril's body was found July 9 in the trunk of a white Tesla sedan on Highway 152 east of Lower Cottonwood Road, the Sun-Star reported. At about 12:20 p.m., the CHP Merced Communications Center got a report of a missing person believed to be on that stretch of highway, and officers from the CHP's Los Banos area and deputies from the Merced County Sheriff's Office responded, the Sun-Star reported. They opened the trunk and found him. ABC30 reported fellow DoorDash drivers in Hollister left flowers and candles at a memorial outside the Safeway where he regularly picked up deliveries. Family members remembered him as "a kind heart, a generous spirit, and always willing to help those he loved," ABC30 reported.

What officials have said about how he died is not identical. ABC30 reported Salceda is accused of shooting and physically assaulting Becerril before putting the body in the trunk, and that officials believe there was planning and a personal motive. The Sun-Star, citing BenitoNews, reported the Merced County coroner's office said Becerril died of a gunshot wound to the neck, and that the CHP said he had also been assaulted. KSBW reported the CHP's Central Division Major Crimes Unit determined Becerril had been physically assaulted before his body was placed in the trunk, and reported that the cause and manner of death have not been disclosed by law enforcement. ABC30 reported officials said Salceda had been using multiple identifications to avoid being found. KSBW, citing the CHP, reported detectives learned he may have used multiple identities to evade law enforcement. Those are allegations and investigative statements. They have not been tested at trial.

The accounts also split on the arrest. ABC30 reported Salceda was arrested at a gas station in Woodland. The Sun-Star reported he was apprehended in Dublin on Oct. 11, after a three-month CHP investigation, and that online jail records show he was booked into the Merced County Jail last Friday, Oct. 16. KSBW, citing the CHP, reported investigators on Oct. 11 tracked a vehicle believed to be carrying him across several Bay Area counties and arrested him without incident at a gas station on Road 8 near Interstate 5 in Woodland. CHP Chief Damon Gilmore said, "Our detectives tracked the evidence across multiple counties to locate and arrest the suspect in Javier Becerril Jr.'s killing," KSBW reported. At the Atwater press conference, Silveira said Salceda was convicted in 2010 of felony criminal threats involving a child abuse charge, the Sun-Star reported. That 2010 case is a prior conviction she described. It is not a finding in this case. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.