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SALT LAKE CITY — A West Valley woman accused of joining in a violent robbery that left her uncle dead pleaded guilty Friday to manslaughter.
Bernadette Ramirez, 48, admitted to the reduced second-degree felony charge as part of a plea bargain. The charge still carries a weapons enhancement.
Ramirez was originally charged with aggravated robbery, child kidnapping and two counts of aggravated kidnapping, all first-degree felonies, as well as a second-degree felony charge of obstructing justice. Those charges were dismissed in exchange for her plea.
According to plea documents, Ramirez said she and "one other person" went to the apartment where her uncle, Steven Louis Valdez, 63, was living, and she got into a confrontation with the man.
"During that confrontation, the other person recklessly shot my uncle causing his death, and I held a facsimile of a firearm during the confrontation," Ramirez wrote in court documents.
Ramirez was charged in the case alongside two others — Arturo Frias-Gonzales, 26, and Eddie Salazar, 42.
Frias-Gonzales also accepted a plea deal in February, admitting to obstructing justice and tampering with a witness, and was sentenced last month to concurrent terms of one to 15 years in prison.
Salazar was acquitted by a jury last month after his attorney argued at trial a witnesses' changing account of the shooting was unreliable, and that no physical evidence linked his client to the crime.
Related:
Jury acquits West Valley man in violent robbery, murder case
A jury on Wednesday acquitted a West Valley man of all charges in a 2015 robbery and killing.Police initially reported the trio went Valdez's apartment, 4150 S. Bluejay (4985 West), and shot and beat him. Police found Valdez dead in an upstairs bedroom with a wallet and necklace reportedly stolen from him. He died from a gunshot wound to his leg and blunt force trauma to his head believed to be from a tire iron, according to an autopsy.
Another niece of Valdez was in the home at the time and told police she saw the trio standing next to her badly bleeding uncle, weapons in hand, and that she escaped their gunfire and fled out of the window of the home with her infant, according to charging documents.
However, the woman said Ramirez and Frias-Gonzales caught up with her outside the home and forced her into an SUV, charges state. The two allegedly ordered her to tell police she witnessed "a home invasion robbery by a gang of masked men" and that they were in Wendover at the time of the killing.
In her initial statements, the woman repeated the story she said Frias-Gonzales and Ramirez had given her.
Police searched Ramierz's apartment as part of a drug investigation later in 2015, finding watches and a necklace belonging to Valdez, charges state. Later, Ramirez called a detective from Valdez's stolen cellphone.
Ramirez told police she had gotten into an argument with Valdez for stealing her drug customers, and then blacked out, according to charging documents.
Sentencing for Ramirez is scheduled for May 16. With the weapons enhancement, she faces a potential two to 20 years in prison.
