SALT LAKE CITY — The man accused of killing an ex-girlfriend whose body was discovered in a remote area of Tooele County over the weekend had recently returned to Utah after being deported from the country just the week before, according to new information discovered in arrest documents.
Nestor Rocha-Aguayo was arrested Sunday, hours after being named a suspect in the murder of 31-year-old Talia Benward.
"It’s tragic, it’s horrific, there’s no excuse for it,” said Adam Crayk, an attorney and managing partner at Stowell Crayk who specializes in immigration and criminal law. "The accused was deported previously, re-entered after a prior deportation, and then is now alleged to have committed homicide against his former, or his partner."
Police became aware of Benward's disappearance after she borrowed a car on New Year's Day and failed to return it, and then missed two days of work. Benward and Rocha-Aguayo had been dating but "had several domestic violence incidents," the arrest report said.
On Dec. 16, Aguayo pled guilty to possession with the intent to distribute a controlled substance. According to the plea agreement, the case was closed, and he was to be released to ICE. There are also previous domestic violence charges involving the same victim.
Crayk said these charges would have made any chances for the suspect to return to the U.S. very slim.
"If you are convicted of distribution, depending on which provision, it is a federal distribution charge and will result in, basically, what is a bar for life and a deportation, so really you could never actually get paperwork, you couldn't get residency here," he explained.
Although Rocha-Aguayo was deported on Dec. 24, he had recently contacted Benward to tell her that he had returned to the state. Despite telling Benward's family that he had no contact with her upon returning to Utah, a search of her iPad found conversations between the two, including one where he asked Benward to pick him up at a Maverik in West Jordan on Jan. 1.
Surveillance video from the Maverik showed Benward arriving at the gas station and Rocha-Aguayo getting into the passenger seat. Soon afterward, the report said the "two began pointing at each other, they rolled up their windows and it appeared as if they were arguing."
Through phone records, detectives determined the two remained together in Salt Lake County for several hours before heading toward Tooele County. Benward's phone eventually stopped moving off an interstate, while Rocha-Aguayo's phone showed him traveling back toward Salt Lake City.
When detectives located the borrowed vehicle outside a Kearns home where phone records showed Rocha-Aguayo had traveled, they found human blood on the passenger door, back rear passenger seat, and on the floor. They added that one floor mat was missing and detected a heavy smell of gasoline inside the trunk but no gas containers inside.
A search early Saturday of the Tooele County location where Benward's phone had last showed her appearance found a burn pit containing partially burned remains of a floor mat that matched ones inside the borrowed vehicle. Rocks were also discovered with blood stains.
Police share information on the arrest of Nestor Rocha-Aguayo in the video below:
K9 units eventually located a pile of brush and "strategically stacked sticks" that were covering the body of a deceased female later identified as Benward. Marks on Benward's body indicated that she had been dragged after she had already been killed.
Later Saturday, police attempted to take Rocha-Aguayo into custody using a taser, but he was able to flee. The next day, U.S. Marshals learned Rocha-Aguayo was onboard a bus heading to Mexico where they successfully detained him in the town of Fillmore, but not before he attempted to flee once again and later attempted to jump from a moving vehicle after being apprehended.
Rocha-Aguayo was arrested on multiple charges, including Aggravated Murder, Abuse or Desecration of a Dead Human Body, Aggravated Robbery and Attempted Escape.
As awful as this situation is, at the same time, Crayk hopes people understand this one incident doesn’t define a whole group of people.
"It’s portrayed immediately that an undocumented person has committed this heinous crime, and then the whole world goes, 'Oh my gosh, we've got to take action, we've got to ensure this never happens again,'" Crayk said. "So all of those that are trying to actually do it the right way are classified and put into a category that is very, very difficult to get out of."
