SALT LAKE CITY — A man accused of cutting up a teenage girl’s body and transporting her remains to Colorado in a suitcase after she died in West Valley City in 2014 pleaded guilty this week to two charges.
Raymond Cordova pleaded guilty July 18 to one count of abuse or desecration of a dead human body, and that second-degree felony was amended to a third-degree felony as part of the plea. He also pleaded guilty to one count of obstructing justice as a third-degree felony.
Cordova is already incarcerated in Colorado on unrelated charges and signed an affidavit to complete the plea without appearing in Utah.
Western Slope Now reports Cordova was sentenced to 60 years in prison for drug trafficking charges relating to a ring operating between Salt Lake City and Mesa County, Colorado.
The charges in Utah stem from the death of 18-year-old Kelly Myers of Colorado. Authorities believe Myers died of a mixed-drug overdose in a hotel room in West Valley City after Cordova picked Myers up at her father’s home on December 18, 2014, police stated.
Cordovoa and Myers traveled to Utah, and court documents allege Myers fatally overdosed in a hotel in West Valley City. The documents state that Cordova contacted two accomplices after her death and asked for their help hiding Myers’ body.
One of those men told police the pair refused to help Cordova with the task itself but agreed to buy supplies for him. The men bought gloves, masks, plastic sheets, cleaning solution, an electric saw and a suitcase, which they transported to the hotel room where Cordova was waiting, a statement of probable cause states.
Social media messages from Cordova sent from the motel included a request the accomplices provide a handsaw because, “the one you got is a very loud one. I know once I start it up it will bring nothing but problems.”
A later message from Cordov reads: “What happened to the saw Cuddi? I’m trying to do the job but you aren’t helping me out.”
Cordova allegedly borrowed a vehicle from one of those two men and abandoned the suitcase with Myers’ remains inside about 20 miles outside of Grand Junction, Colorado.
“This wasn’t just a piece of trash that you stuffed, and I hate saying that word, but you put in a suitcase,” said Kim Lee, Myer’s mother, in 2015. “Shame on you. Shame on you for taking that away from us.”
Cordova is scheduled to be sentenced for the charges in Utah on August 14, though he will not appear in person at the sentencing as he remains incarcerated in Colorado.
