Inez García (1941–2003), a Hispanic woman, gained notoriety within the feminist movement after being accused of the murder of a man who had previously raped her in 1974. Background García was born in New York City and raised in Spanish Harlem. Her ethnic heritage was mixed Puerto Rican and Cuban. She married the Cuban exile and Anti-Castro activist Juan García Cardenas, and the two of them had a son in 1963. Cardenas was imprisoned in Soledad, California, after being convicted of involvement in a political bombing in Los Angeles claimed by Poder Cubano. In 1971 Garcia moved to Soledad to be nearer to her husband. She worked in the lettuce fields and supplemented her income with welfare. She earned a reputation in the small, mostly Chicano community as a devout and chaste Catholic. She shared an apartment with Fred Medrano, a Texan who was involved in the illegal drug trade. Rape and murder On March 17, 1974, García was entertaining friends at her apartment; Medrano also had a guest, with whom he was smoking marijuana. Louie Castillo and Miguel Jimenez, Soledad locals and acquaintances of Medrano, arrived in a state of inebriation to purchase heroin from Medrano. They began harassing García and her friends, and Garcia's guests departed, leaving García with the others in the apartment. An argument arose between Medrano and Castillo, who was envious of Medrano's status as the primary drug connection in Soledad and was resentful that an "outsider" had become so successful. The argument became physical, and Medrano was winning the fight until the 300-pound Jimenez intervened, beating Medrano and threatening him with a knife. Jimenez and Castillo took García to an alley behind the building where Jimenez restrained and Castillo raped her, according to García's testimony, "to show me what a hometown boy was." The two men left the scene for a neighbor's house. Shortly after arriving, they (or someone else) called the García-Medrano residence, laughing, taunting, and threatening García's life if she did not leave town. García armed herself with her son's .22 rifle and she and Medrano drove the six blocks to the residence where Castillo and Jimenez were located. Accounts vary as to precisely what occurred next, but, according to Garcia's testimony during her 1975 retrial, Jimenez appeared to brandish his knife and García shot him. Castillo, meanwhile, escaped into a nearby park. Medrano and García continued until they arrived at the