Jose Figueroa was putting his tools into his truck as the sun went down one evening during the summer of 2012 when he heard shouting and gunshots.
He’d been stripping cars for parts to recycle or sell on the Salt Lake City lot he leased when he heard the commotion. He ran between cars to the front of the property, where he saw a man on the ground, struggling to get up, Figueroa testified Tuesday in 3rd District Court.
Figueroa said he recognized the man on the ground as Jose Ignacio Valdez-Guzman, and the man standing over Valdez-Guzman that day was Carlos Clemente Trevizo .
(Courtesy Salt Lake City Police Department) Murder victim Jose Ignacio Valdez-Guzman (left), and the man who allegedly killed him, Carlos Treviso.
Five and a half years later, Figueroa — brought in shackles from Idaho, where he is awaiting sentencing in a federal drug case — testified at a preliminary hearing about what he saw that evening.
His previous statements to detectives led to the November arrest of 56-year-old Trevizo, who is charged with seven felonies, including first-degree felony murder.
Figueroa said Trevizo — who leased the property where the assault happened to Figueroa for $250 a month — pushed Valdez-Guzman back onto the ground with his foot. Figueroa testified that Trevizo stabbed Valdez-Guzman, who was in his mid-30s, in the neck, then pulled back the man’s head and sliced his throat.
In court on Tuesday, Trevizo looked down and shook his head as he listened to Figueroa’s accusations.
Figueroa had kept quiet for years because he was intimidated, he said, after Trevizo insisted on driving him home and said something about what happens to “snitches.”
Figueroa testified that Trevizo told him he’d been robbed of two pounds of methamphetamine because of Valdez-Guzman. According to court documents, a witness also said Trevizo had been robbed of $1,800 in cash.
Two other men were on the lot during or right after the killing, Figueroa said. One, a bearded man he didn’t recognize. The other, nicknamed “Puma,” had a baby with Figueroa’s sister.
“I was thinking the worst,” Figueroa testified. “I was thinking maybe they were going to do something to me over there. Kill me.”
Figueroa was deported to Mexico in 2013, and when he returned to the states in 2015, Trevizo told him he’d been watching his family. Figueroa said he took that as a threat.
Fast-forward to November 2017, the month that police officers found Valdez-Guzman’s remains under nearly seven feet of dirt on Trevizo’s property, a stretch of dirt and sparse grass next to railroad tracks and a canal in the industrial district on the west side of Salt Lake City.
Figueroa was awaiting sentencing on firearms possession and distribution of and intent to distribute methamphetamine in a federal case in Idaho when he talked to detectives.
He said he came forward because he had been baptized and converted to born-again Christianity, he said.
“I want peace. I’m ready. I feel that I’ve done a lot of selfish things in my life and I owe it to my family and myself,” Figueroa testified. “I don’t want that burden on me anymore.”
His sentencing has been continued to June so he can cooperate in Trevizo’s case. Defense attorneys asked Figueroa if he expected to get a reduced sentence in exchange for testifying in this trial.
“That’s up to the prosecutor and the judge,” Figueroa said.
When he returned from Mexico, his wife was working two jobs and he “felt useless,” he said. So Trevizo got him some work, first in construction, and then allegedly arranging drug deals.
At the end of Tuesday’s hearing, Judge James Blanch found there was enough evidence to advance the case to trial. A scheduling hearing for Trevizo is set for May 4.