Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes
WEST VALLEY CITY — An Orem man convicted last year of shooting two people in Utah County has now been charged with kidnapping and killing three people from Salt Lake County and burying their bodies in a remote area of Tooele County — all over a small drug debt.
Cesar Matias Sevilla-Aleman, 26 — whose moniker is "Taliban," according to prosecutors — was charged Wednesday in 3rd District Court with three counts of aggravated murder and three counts of aggravated kidnapping, first-degree felonies.
Prosecutors say the two men were killed over a $2,400 drug debt, while a woman was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Rocio Baneulos-Bustamante, 29, Carlos "Carlitos" Sepulveda-Montes, age unknown, and Zamir "Cumbias" Sanchez-Hernandez, 35, were last seen on March 28, 2022, and reported missing to various police agencies.
Family members told West Valley police Baneulos-Bustamante was last seen getting into a car with the other two men. In June 2022, a family member "received a phone call from a male who informed her to stop looking for Rocio, that Rocio had been killed and buried somewhere in the mountains," according to charging documents.
A friend of Sepulveda-Montes told police after his friend disappeared that "Carlos had mentioned a man named 'Taliban'" who was known to be a "bad guy" and had been arrested for a shooting at a party in Spanish Fork.
Detectives found news articles about Sevilla-Aleman who was also involved in a shooting on Sept. 4, 2022, at a rodeo being held at Lincoln Beach on the west side of West Mountain near the town of Genola, and learned he may have a connection to at least one of the missing victims.
Sevilla-Aleman was sentenced in July to consecutive prison terms of five years to life and three to 15 years for the shootings.
Detectives investigating the missing trio also found a conversation on social media, during which Sepulveda-Montes told Sanchez-Hernandez "he needs to pay a debt of $2,400 or 'they' will take him away," charging documents state.
On April 22, 2023, cadaver dogs located human remains while training in the area of the Mercur Trailhead, in Tooele County. Three bodies and two bullets were found in a grave the next day, according to the charges, and a wallet that contained Sanchez-Hernandez's identification was found in the back pocket of one of the victims.
Investigators used DNA, fingerprints and tattoos on the bodies to positively identify the remains as the three missing people.
A witness later told police that on the morning of March 28, 2022, Sevilla-Aleman was talking with others about how Sepulveda-Montes owed him money but couldn't pay, so he took them up a mountain, shot them and buried them, according to prosecutors.
"That witness heard the group with Mr. Sevilla-Aleman say that they dug the hole for the men, and the woman was not supposed to be there, but she was shot and killed as well," according to the district attorney's office.
"We thank our partners in law enforcement for working with our prosecutors to help solve this case and file these charges," Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill said Wednesday in a prepared statement.
