Juan Jose Figueroa Jr., who is accused of kidnapping and murdering a Longmont woman three years ago, will make his first appearance in Boulder County on the case later this month.
Figueroa, 32, was indicted by a grand jury on counts of first-degree murder after deliberation, felony murder and second-degree kidnapping in the disappearance and presumed death of Rita Guterriez-Garcia.
Felony murder can be charged when a person dies during the commission of a felony, in this case the kidnapping charge.
The murder charges are Class 1 felonies that carry a mandatory sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Figueroa is already in prison for at least 93 years following a conviction in a separate sex assault case, but prosecutors said he will be making his first appearance in Boulder County on the Gutierrez-Garcia case on June 23.
Gutierrez-Garcia has been missing since March 18, 2018, when she was celebrating St. Patrick’s Day with friends and family at bars in downtown Longmont and was last seen in a city parking lot behind 3’s Bar.
While no body has been recovered, police have said they presume Gutierrez-Garcia is dead.
Figeuroa was named as the primary suspect early on in the case, but with no body prosecutors were only able to present the case to a grand jury in April.
According to the grand jury indictment, Figueroa was arrested March 27, 2018, in Texas on a warrant for the Boulder County sexual assault case after he was stopped by Customs and Border Patrol agents as he was crossing back into the U.S. from Mexico.
When Texas officials told him the warrant was for sexual assault and that he was likely to be extradited, the indictment states Figueroa responded, “That’s the only warrant? That’s it? …Just sex assault? …Sweet, let’s get this over and done with so I can get my bond, get it posted.”
The indictment also states Figueroa told a cellmate that he had strangled Gutierrez-Garcia after punching her into unconsciousness after she called him a “weirdo.” The indictment states he said her body was in “an area not accessible to the public.”
A separate witness testified before a grand jury that Figueroa said he had buried Gutierrez-Garcia’s body and that “the only way anyone would find it is if police inserted a probe into his brain,” according to the indictment.
The indictment also states that investigators found DNA evidence that confirms Gutierrez-Garcia was in Figueroa’s pickup. Cellphone data from early March 18, 2018, also shows that her cellphone traveled the same path as the pickup until it was turned off at 3:10 a.m., just after Longmont Police dispatch received a hang-up 911 call at 3:07 a.m. Dispatchers tried calling back twice but got no answer.
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June 12, 2021 at 02:35AM
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Juan Figueroa to make first Boulder County appearance in Rita Gutierrez-Garcia case - Longmont Times-Call
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