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WEST VALLEY CITY — After being on the run for nearly seven years, a man charged with killing a woman in West Valley City and then dumping her body in Colorado was arrested earlier this year in Mexico City, West Valley police confirmed Monday.
Over the weekend, Francisco Jesus Huerta-Martinez, 41, was booked into the Salt Lake County Jail on a $1 million warrant that was issued for his arrest in 2015. He was charged in October 2015 in 3rd District Court with murder and aggravated robbery, first-degree felonies, and obstructing justice, a second-degree felony.
Police said Monday that Huerta-Martinez's arrest was the culmination of a "yearslong, exhaustive effort" by detectives that took them "throughout Colorado and Texas" and eventually into Mexico.
"This year, investigators developed new information regarding Huerta-Martinez's whereabouts, and in partnership with the U.S. Marshal Service and the Salt Lake County District Attorney's Office, Huerta-Martinez was located and taken into custody in Mexico City in May," said West Valley police spokeswoman Roxeanne Vainuku.
On Aug. 6, 2015, police say Maria Maricela Astorga-Chavez, 32, dropped off her son at her sister's residence and then got into an SUV driven by Huerta-Martinez. Astorga-Chavez was scheduled to pick her son up the next morning, but the last message the sister ever received from her was just after 1 a.m. on Aug. 7, 2015.
Two days later, on Aug. 9, 2015, Huerta-Martinez met a friend in Forth Worth, Texas, and claimed that he had "strangled a person to death, wrapped the body in a blanket and dumped the body off the side of the road in the mountains of Colorado," according to charging documents.
Astorga-Chavez's body was found days later in Summit County, Colorado, wrapped in a comforter, according to police. An electrical cord was tied around the comforter. West Valley police also collected evidence from both the homes of Astorga-Chavez and Huerta-Martinez. Evidence of both of them being in Huerta-Martinez's room was also recovered, the charges state.
Vainuku said prior to this year, detectives had exhausted all leads as to Huerta-Martinez's whereabouts and the case went cold in 2019.
"It is our hope that the extradition back to Utah of Francisco Huerta-Martinez this past week will help bring to a close one painful chapter for the family of Maria Maricela Astorga-Chavez. We are grateful for our outstanding investigative team and their unceasing efforts to bring the suspect in this case to justice," she said.
As of Monday, a new court date for Huerta-Martinez had not been set.
