After Yamilet Rodriguez-Vences refused to have sex with her husband, she walked out of their apartment and said she would come back to take their children with her in the morning. A week later, on Oct. 15, 2015, her body was found decomposing in trash bags behind a Lawrenceville oil change center.
Her husband, Fernando Guzman-Perez, was convicted of murder and concealing the death of another on Wednesday, the Gwinnett County District Attorney’s Office said.
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Rodriguez-Vences was reported missing by her sister on Oct. 12, 2015, after Guzman-Perez told the sister that Rodriguez-Vences had left after an argument, the DA’s office said. Police met with Guzman-Perez two days later.
Guzman-Perez told police that he had tried to initiate sex with Rodriguez-Vences on Oct. 7, 2015, but she repeatedly refused before getting out of bed and leaving the apartment. Guzman-Perez told detectives that his wife did not take her cell phone because he had purchased it for her, and told him not to call her family or their pastor because she was not going to stay with them.
Police found Rodriguez-Vences’ body in orange trash bags in the brush behind Express Oil Change in Lawrenceville, where Guzman-Perez worked, on Oct. 15, 2015. Guzman-Perez was taken to the Lawrenceville Police Department’s headquarters and interviewed again by investigators. He then told police that he had followed Rodriguez-Vences out of the apartment when she left and reached out to grab her arm, but she fell down the stairs and broke her neck. He said he panicked and put her body in the trash bags, which he put behind the Express Oil Change, according to the DA’s office.
Rodriguez-Vences did not have any broken bones, a Gwinnett County medical examiner testified at trial. Due to the level of decomposition, it was difficult to determine her exact cause of death, but she “could not exclude” asphyxiation, as one trash bag was taped around Rodriguez-Vences’ neck.
Guzman-Perez was found guilty after a two-day trial and sentenced to life in prison without parole.
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