CO - Killing suspect told police he binged before stabbing girl, 14

December 26, 2012
By Sadie Gurman
The Denver Post

BRIGHTON — Ezequiel Padilla-Villalobos told police he binged on beer and cocaine before he "began having bad thoughts" and fatally stabbed his girlfriend's little sister, according to a police affidavit released Wednesday.

Padilla-Villalobos, 24, told Commerce City officers he spent Sunday night drinking at a friend's house, then drinking at a bar — 12 to 14 beers, by his count — before his girlfriend sent him a text message asking him to get her 14-year-old sister from their mother's house in Broomfield.

Padilla-Villalobos picked the girl up, he said, but their journey took a grim turn when he began having what he described as "thoughts of killing while he was driving," the affidavit says.

In his red Ford Ranger pickup, they headed to the 8600 block of Verbena Street, an isolated dirt road in Commerce City.

Detectives later discovered the girl's body there, near a stable where Padilla-Villalobos told police he had helped his friend shovel horse manure earlier in the day.

The affidavit offered the first detailed glimpses into the killing, for which Padilla-Villalobos faces a charge of first-degree murder. Commerce City police Officer Chris Dickey said detectives were conferring with the Adam's County district attorney's office, which could formally file the charge by Friday.

Padilla-Villalobos, dressed in a blue paper jumpsuit, made his first court appearance Wednesday morning in Adams County, where District Judge Thomas Ensor ordered him to remain jailed without bond. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement also requested that local authorities hold Padilla-Villalobos, a native of Chihuahua, Mexico, indicating he is in the country illegally and could face deportation if he is released.

With the help of a Spanish interpreter, he told the judge he understood his rights but said nothing else. Relatives at the hearing declined to comment.

Neither police nor the county coroner's office, which conducted the girl's autopsy Wednesday, would release her name, saying the body had been tentatively but not positively identified. Court records indicate the victim is a sister of Padilla-Villalobos' girlfriend, FlorMaria Acosta, and a daughter of Natalia Acosta, neither of whom could be reached for comment.

Police found Padilla-Villalobos covered in blood at a Diamond Shamrock gas station, from where he called 911 just before midnight Sunday, "wanting to turn himself in for killing a woman," the affidavit says. He told police "he felt so bad for the bad thing he had done he stopped and requested they call the police."

The reasons for the violence were unclear. Padilla-Villalobos said he leaned over and started strangling the girl as soon as he parked the truck on Verbena Street. She struggled against him before he stabbed her with a kitchen knife that he had used to cut vegetables days before, the affidavit says.

Padilla-Villalobos is expected to appear in court again on Friday.

Killing suspect told police he binged before stabbing girl, 14 - The Denver Post