UKIAH, CA., 6/23/26 — The call that brought Mendocino County sheriff’s deputies to a homicide on Hensley Creek Road Tuesday afternoon is in the sheriff’s log as a “911 hang up.”
The woman on that call told the dispatcher she’d found that “an adult male had murdered an adult female at the location with a knife,” Capt. Quincy Cromer wrote in a sheriff’s office release Wednesday.
Deputies arrested Isidro ValenciaOrtiz, 46, of Ukiah. He’s in the county jail on suspicion of first-degree murder, with bail set at $2 million. The woman who died was 40, from Ukiah, and “a relative of ValenciaOrtiz,” Cromer wrote. Her name is being withheld for now.
The sheriff’s office posts its daily log on its website. The entry is timed 3:14 p.m. and filed under “911 HANG UP,” with a note on the same line that ValenciaOrtiz was arrested for murder. The release puts the call at 3:14 p.m., too.
Deputies headed out, with medical crews told to stage nearby and help called in from the California Highway Patrol and other parts of the county. The caller met them on the driveway and pointed the way.
They found ValenciaOrtiz near a house. He “was holding a knife when encountered by Sheriff’s Deputies,” the release says. Told to drop it and surrender, he “eventually complied” and was handcuffed.
Then deputies searched the property and found the woman, with wounds the release calls “consistent with a violent assault.” They checked for vital signs and called in medical crews, who pronounced her dead at the scene. Deputies found no other victims, and the sheriff’s office says no other suspects are at large.
Sheriff’s detectives took over and got a search warrant for the property. Criminalists from the state Department of Justice’s labs in Eureka and Santa Rosa came to process the scene, and deputies seized evidence “consistent with a violent assault and homicide occurring at the property.”
ValenciaOrtiz went to a hospital first and was medically cleared for jail. The county’s online booking log shows he was booked at 6:42 a.m. Wednesday on suspicion of murder, with an enhancement for using a deadly weapon.
An autopsy is being scheduled. Anything more is being held back, Cromer wrote, “to maintain the integrity of this ongoing investigation.”
Anyone with information can call the sheriff’s office at 707-463-4086, option 1, or leave an anonymous tip at 707-234-2100.