An O'ahu grand jury has indicted a former Pearl Harbor police officer for the 1992 murder of a base cashier whose body was never found.

The indictment Wednesday of Jenaro Torres, 57, is the first for the state Attorney General's cold case unit, which was formed in February. Torres remains at large.

Torres is accused of killing Ruben Gallegos, 20, during the course of a robbery of $80,000 from the Pearl Harbor Navy Exchange on May 1, 1992, said Susan Y.N. Won, a deputy attorney general in the Criminal Justice Division.

Investigators found a brown satchel in the trunk of Torres' car containing all but $1,998 of the stolen money. They also found a Smith & Wesson handgun with one live round and three spent cartridges that had recently been fired, an electric shocking device, a portable police scanner and Gallegos' wallet and hairbrush, according to FBI and court records.

Torres is thought to be living in California or Las Vegas, but his exact whereabouts are unknown, Won said.

"We are very hopeful we are going to find him," she said. "We know of his relatives. We have addresses. We are just hopeful that the leads will pan out."

Torres was initially charged in 1992 with kidnapping, but pleaded no contest to reduced charges of theft and carrying a firearm without a license. He was sentenced to two years in federal prison and three years' probation.

He returned to Hawai'i for a while and then moved back to the Mainland to be with relatives, Won said.

The case, and especially what happened to Gallegos, was a mystery in the summer of 1992.

At 8:45 a.m. on May 1, 1992, Gallegos received $80,000 for the purpose of cashing Navy payroll checks.

Two armed military escorts went with him to the Navy Exchange Administration Building at Pearl Harbor, where Gallegos locked himself inside the cashier's cage.

Witnesses said that some time after that, Torres, who was armed with a handgun, was seen escorting Gallegos from the building. They had a brown satchel.

Military police were notified and arrested Torres when he tried to enter Pearl Harbor about 3 p.m. that day. They would also find evidence that he planned to leave the state within days.

At one point, Gallegos was a suspect in the robbery — something his relatives vehemently denied him capable of committing. Yesterday, Won would only say: "He is not a suspect."

Although there were developments over the years, Won said nothing significant has changed about the case and the attorney general simply felt there was enough evidence to take to a grand jury.

"There was evidence that surfaced after 1992, but I can't comment on it," she said. "We can't discuss the substance of the case before the trial."

At the time of his disappearance, Gallegos had been living in Hawai'i with his oldest sibling, Blanca Gallegos Lerma, and her family. They were close, she said.

Lerma flew to Hawai'i from her home in El Paso, Texas, to testify before the grand jury. The experience has been painful.

"Coming here is like reliving the whole thing over again like it just happened," she said. "My mom has been really ill because of this. She has had nervous breakdowns."

The news of the indictment left her mother in tears.

"The whole family has suffered," Lerma said. "We are all stuck in 1992 and wondering what happened to our brother and why he is not with us."

Reach Mike Gordon at mgordon@honoluluadvertiser.com.