Three people are accused of conspiring to kill a Utah woman in a cemetery last month, according to Atlanta police.
Denis Manuel Velasquez Rivera, 22, Madelian Garcia, 18, and Hector Paz, 22, all from metro Atlanta, face charges of murder, aggravated assault, armed robbery and conspiracy to commit a felony in connection with the fatal shooting of 20-year-old Angela Yajahira Cortes Villegas. Garcia and Paz are also charged with felony murder.
Credit: Atlanta Police Department
Credit: Atlanta Police Department
They were arrested Friday in Norcross. Velasquez Rivera and Paz have since been booked into the Fulton County Jail. Online jail records do not show that Garcia had been booked as of Wednesday.
Cortes Villegas was found in a wooded area of Crest Lawn Memorial Park, a cemetery at the intersection of Chattahoochee Avenue and Marietta Boulevard, on April 20. She’d been shot five times and had no forms of identification on her. Investigators released images of her distinctive tattoos in an effort to identify her and ultimately figured out who she was through her fingerprints.
Aside from filing the armed robbery charge, investigators have not revealed a possible motive for the killing, but court documents offer a glimpse into what they believe unfolded in the hours before the Easter holiday.
According to arrest warrants obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, surveillance footage showed Cortes Villegas arrive at a Shell gas station across the road from the cemetery around 10:15 p.m. on April 19. She was accompanied by a man and a woman, and moments later, they walked into the cemetery, the warrant states.
Investigators do not specify why they believe the group was in the cemetery.
As detectives combed through surveillance footage from around the area, they pinpointed a blue Chevrolet Sonic that was seen at the gas station and the cemetery multiple times throughout the day. The vehicle left about 30 minutes after the victim was seen entering the cemetery, according to the warrant. The footage also captured the same people who were seen with the victim getting into that car.
Investigators traced the car using its tag number and determined it entered Georgia from South Carolina around 5 a.m. the same day, detectives noted in the warrant. The vehicle was recorded returning to South Carolina after the time police believe Cortes Villegas was killed.
Police later narrowed down the suspects to Velasquez Rivera, Garcia and Paz, who were located in a Motel 6 in Norcross, the warrant states. Velasquez Rivera is accused of pulling the trigger while Garcia and Paz were present, and they are all alleged to have discussed the plan to kill Cortes Villegas throughout the day.
Atlanta police did not address questions about whether more arrests were forthcoming.
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