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The body of a Colorado woman, who police believe may have died in a Utah hotel, was stuffed into a suitcase and ferried across the Colorado border in the trunk of a car before being dumped near Grand Junction, police say.
The information — which police gleaned from an informant — was included in West Valley City police search warrant made public in 3rd District Court on Tuesday.
The body of Kelly Mae Myers was found Feb. 28 in the Cactus Park hiking area of Colorado, about 22 miles from Grand Junction, a location that was also provided to police by the informant, the search warrant states. Her body was inside a large, hard-sided black suitcase, West Valley City Police. Sgt. Mike Christenson said.
Christenson said Myers was a small person but would not describe the condition of Myers' body.
Police have called Myers' death suspicious, but have not yet ruled it a homicide. The results of an autopsy conducted by the Mesa County Coroner's Office in Colorado are still pending, Christenson said.
Family members had reported Myers missing to Colorado police in late December, days after they say she left Grand Junction to attend a birthday party in Utah, the search warrant states.
West Valley City is investigating because the 18-year-old's social media accounts were last active on an IP address registered to the Country Inn & Suites hotel there. Her last Facebook post was Dec. 19, the search warrant states.
"I can't go into the details, but we did recover forensic evidence that places her in the hotel room," Christenson said.
The room where Myers may have died was rented to 30-year-old Edurado De La Cruz, a Colorado man with family ties in the Salt Lake Valley, Christenson said.
He's currently being held in a Colorado jail on drug charges, but is considered a "person of interest" in Myers' death, according to Christenson.
In a Feb. 23 interview with police, the hotel's housekeeping supervisor and a maintenance manager told investigators that after the room was vacated, staff found it had a "strong and pungent smell," which some likened socks or feet that had not been washed for several months, the affidavit states.
A similar "strong, foul odor" was described to police as being present in the vehicle that the informant said was used to transport Myers' body to Colorado, court papers say.
The informant said he was in the car and went with the driver — Raymond Cordova — to Colorado to dispose of the suitcase.
Police say Cordova, 47, is a known associate of De La Cruz and the man who drove Myers from Colorado to Utah three months ago. He's also considered a person of interest in the case, Christenson said.
Both De La Cruz and Cordova were being held in the Mesa County Jail on Tuesday, according to a story in Grand Junction's Daily Sentinel newspaper.
De La Cruz is charged with conspiracy to distribute heroin and is the suspected leader of a drug trafficking organization. He was arrested Feb. 17 on a fugitive warrant for absconding parole in Utah, where he was convicted of aggravated robbery in 2000.
He is also being investigated by Salt Lake County's Unified Police Department in connection with a Feb. 14 drive-by shooting. Mesa County authorities linked him to the incident through statements De La Cruz made over a phone that was being wire-tapped as part of a drug investigation, the Daily Sentinel story states.
According to the West Valley City warrants, the vehicle that investigators suspect was used in the drive-by shooting was located in Kearns on Feb. 24 and is likely the same car used to transport Myers' body from Utah to Colorado. The gray Hyundai, which was on loan to De La Cruz, matches the car described to police by the informant.
The affidavit also states that two cadaver dogs that police deployed to inspect the vehicle at different times Feb. 24 both "indicated positive." One of the same dogs was later used to help locate the suitcase holding Myers' body.
Cordova was arrested Feb. 19 in Grand Junction on suspicions of involvement in drug activity with De La Cruz, according to the Daily Sentinel story. The newspaper said police snared Cordova through wire taps that recorded conversations about multiple drug transactions.