A Colorado man has been sentenced to prison for up to five years for disposing of the body of a woman after she died of a drug overdose at a Utah motel.
Raymond Cordova, 50, of Grand Junction, Colo., had pleaded guilty in 3rd District Court to third-degree felony counts of desecration of a human body and obstructing justice in connection with the 2014 death of 18-year-old Kelly Mae Myers, also of Grand Junction.
(Courtesy | Utah Dept. of Corrections) Eduardo N. Delacruz mug from September 2014.
On Monday, Judge Elizabeth Hruby-Mills ordered the two prison terms to run concurrently to each other, but consecutively to a sentence Cordova is presently serving at a Colorado prison.
On Feb. 28, 2015, Myers’ body was found stuffed inside a large black suitcase in the Cactus Park hiking area of Colorado, about 20 miles southeast of Grand Junction.
Family members had reported Myers missing to Colorado police in late December 2014, days after they say she left to attend a birthday party in Utah, according to charging documents.
In January 2016, Cordova, and Eduardo Nasario Delacruz, 32, of West Valley City, were charged with one count each of second-degree felony desecration of a human body and third-degree felony obstructing justice.
Delacruz pleaded guilty in June to the obstructing justice count, admitting he provided false information regarding the investigation, and was immediately sentenced to prison for up to five years. But he, too, is presently serving time at an Colorado prison.
Myer’s social media accounts were last active on Dec. 19, 2014, when she sent her boyfriend a Facebook message from an IP address registered to the Country Inn & Suites hotel in West Valley City, according to charges.
(Courtesy | Mesa County, Co. Sheriff's Office) Kelly Mae Myers.
Room 221 at the hotel was rented to Delacruz from Dec. 18 to Dec. 22, 2014, charges state.
In an interview with police on Feb. 23, 2015, the hotel’s staff said that after the room was vacated, it had a “strong and pungent smell,” charges state. Police investigators later found tissue in the bathtub drain that was a DNA match to Myers, charges state.
An informant told police that on Dec. 19, 2014, he got a text from Delacruz asking to meet. The informant and Delacruz went to the Country Inn, where Cordova let them in, showed them Meyers’ dead body in the bathtub and said she had died of an overdose, charges state.
The three discussed what to do with the body, and Cordova suggested cutting it up and putting it in a duffel bag or suitcase, charges state.
The informant refused to help cut up the body, but agreed to buy supplies for that purpose, charges state. The informant and Delacruz bought gloves, masks, plastic sheeting, cleaning solutions, an electric saw and a suitcase, and delivered them to Cordova, charges state. The informant also told police that Delacruz loaned his car to Cordova to dump the body.
A different informant told police that on Dec. 25, 2014, Cordova picked him up in Colorado in a car with a strong, unpleasant odor.
Cordova explained that Meyers’ body was the source of the smell, that she had overdosed in a hotel in Utah and that he had to cut her legs to fit her body into a suitcase, charges state.
Cordova asked the informant’s help in disposing of the suitcase, which Cordova kicked into a ravine in Cactus Park, charges state.
An autopsy later determined Meyers died from “mixed drug intoxication, that her upper thighs were cut after she had died, charges state.
Deputy Salt Lake County District Attorney Bradford Cooley said Wednesday that while he did not know what convictions Cordova and Delacruz were serving time for in Colorado, both had been charged with drug and firearms violations.
Cooley said Cordova will not be eligible for parole from the Colorado prison system until 2044, while Delacruz will not be eligible for release until 2030.
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