A 15-year-old murder case was resolved yesterday when a Circuit Court jury convicted Jenaro Torres of the 1992 slaying of Pearl Harbor base cashier Ruben Gallegos.

In an afternoon news conference, Gallegos' sister Blanca Gallegos Lerma tearfully thanked law enforcement agencies for never giving up on the case, which Attorney General Mark Bennett described as "an extremely difficult one to prosecute" because the body of the murder victim has never been found.

It is the first case brought by the "cold case" unit in Bennett's office.

Torres, 58, was convicted earlier of robbing Gallegos of $80,000 and served two years in federal prison, but he was never charged with murder until the cold case unit, assisted by various law enforcement agencies here and on the Mainland, took a new look at the evidence and filed the homicide charge in 2005.

Torres was a Pearl Harbor security officer at the time of the offense. He was arrested May 1, 1992, just hours after the robbery, when he tried to drive in to Pearl Harbor. Found in his car were a loaded gun, a bag containing $78,000 of the stolen cash, and Gallegos' wallet and hairbrush.

Torres pleaded not guilty to the murder charge and his attorney, Deputy Public Defender Edward Harada, argued at trial this month that Gallegos was an accomplice in the robbery and was still alive, hiding from authorities.

Harada said yesterday, "I'm disappointed in the verdict and so is Mr. Torres."

He said he "definitely" planned to appeal the conviction.

Bennett and Deputy Attorney General Susan Won, who prosecuted the case, lauded the work of Navy criminal investigator Bruce Warshawsky, who has been pursuing leads and seeking witnesses virtually since Gallegos disappeared.

In a 1997 interview, Warshawsky told The Advertiser that evidence folders he had collected in the Gallegos investigation filled two shelves of a bookcase.

"By the time we find what happened, the whole bookcase might be filled," Warshawsky said at the time. "Every time we review those reports, we find something new."

The search for evidence eventually led Warshawsky to Susan Davis, who worked with Torres in California after he was released from federal prison.

She testified that in 1997, Torres told her that he was involved in a robbery and had had to "take out" an accomplice who appeared to be reaching for a gun.

Davis said Torres repeatedly threatened her after he made the disclosure and, frightened for her life, did not tell authorities about the conversation until 1999.

Bennett said yesterday his office is committed to investigating unsolved homicides and bringing them to trial. Some of the cases will not result in conviction, he said.

"I am certain of that because that's the nature of these cases," he said.

Torres faces a sentence of life in prison with the possibility of parole. Sentencing has been set for May 29.

Reach Jim Dooley at jdooley@honoluluadvertiser.com.