Fresno police arrest man in murder, torture case, search continues

A canal on the edge of southwest Fresno has become the center of a murder and torture case that police say started with a dispute among people who knew each other and ended with one woman dead and one man still missing.

Fresno police said the body of Georgiana McGhee was recovered near Nielsen and Hughes avenues around 11:45 p.m. on May 10. Investigators later said McGhee, 50, had been severely beaten before being placed in the canal. Police identified the suspect as 48-year-old Boshay Reggie Romont Ware, who was booked into Fresno County Jail on murder and torture charges.

Police Chief Mindy Casto said the case was not random and that the people involved were associates, not strangers. That distinction matters in a case that now spans homicide, a missing-person search and a broader investigation into what happened when the confrontation escalated. Fresno police have said Jerome Saldivar, 55, was assaulted in the same incident and has been missing since May 10.

Saldivar was last seen around 9 p.m. that night in the area of East Clinton Avenue west of North Blackstone Avenue. Police described him as 6 feet tall, about 200 pounds, with very short brown hair, brown eyes, prescription glasses, blue jeans and a gray-and-red work shirt with a name tag.

Detectives said McGhee had recently been involved in a dispute tied to an RV trailer. One report said investigators traced McGhee’s final movements and interviewed friends and family to identify Ware. Another said officers followed leads to a trailer registered to Saldivar, and when they tried to contact him, they learned he too had been missing since May 10.

The search for Saldivar remains active, and Fresno police have publicly said he may still be alive. For families and neighbors near the canal, the unanswered questions are stark: where Saldivar went, how the dispute turned so violent, and whether there are additional witnesses who have not yet spoken to investigators.