http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/l ... 13,00.html

Man ID'd from photo
By Bianca Prieto and Ivan Moreno, Rocky Mountain News
September 21, 2006
DOUGLAS COUNTY - Sheriff's deputies have arrested a 36-year-old Glendale man in a dragging death that horrified a rural neighborhood.
Douglas County sheriff's deputies said Wednesday that they arrested Jose Luis Rubi-Nava on suspicion of first-degree murder in connection with the death of a woman whose body was found early Monday in the Surrey Ridge subdivision.

CBS 4 News reported that authorities said Rubi-Nava confessed to the slaying during an interview Tuesday with a Spanish- speaking interrogator from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation.
Authorities identified Rubi-Nava, a suspected illegal immigrant, from a tattered picture of a man and woman found near the crime scene.

The photo was released late Monday and led to numerous calls that helped to identify and ultimately arrest Rubi-Nava.

Authorities have not confirmed the identity of the woman in the picture or the victim.

However, a close family friend and roommate said he believes the victim is Luz Maria Franco Fierro, a 50-year-old from the southern Mexican state of Guerrero.

Cesar Gustavo Garcia Flores, 20, who said he's known Fierro most of his life, said he sometimes saw her and Rubi-Nava arguing. Flores said he lived with Rubi-Nava, Fierro and another male roommate in a Glendale apartment complex.

"He hit her once and she kicked him out of the apartment a couple of times," said Flores.

Speaking in Spanish, Flores said he once heard Fierro tell Rubi-Nava, "Get out of here. Either you're going to kill me or I'm going to kill you."

But Rubi-Nava would come back, Flores said.

Zulma Pulgarin, 31, who lived on the same floor as the victim, said Fierro and Rubi-Nava argued like any other couple. Sometimes after their arguments, Pulgarin said Fierro would tell her, "He's back, and he even did the laundry for me."

Pulgarin said Fierro told her she was happy with Rubi-Nava, despite her knowledge that he has a wife and children in Mexico.

The woman in the photo with Rubi-Nava is his wife, according to Flores and Pulgarin. Flores said when he saw that picture in news reports, he was certain Rubi-Nava had killed Fierro. The picture also prompted Fierro's co-workers at a fast-food restaurant to call the police, Flores said.

Pulgarin said she had become accustomed to Fierro's visits every morning before work and began to worry Monday when she didn't see her friend.

The woman's body was found near Surrey Drive and Corral Road around 2:30 a.m. Monday by a passerby. An autopsy determined that she was alive when she was tied to a vehicle and dragged for more than a mile.

The slaying left a bloodstain more than a mile long down Surrey Drive. Maintenance crews worked Tuesday to cover the road with tar.

"I thought it was odd that she hadn't visited me these last few days," Pulgarin said in Spanish. "Because she would always come visit every morning. She felt really sad" recently because one of her daughters had surgery in Mexico and Fierro couldn't be with her.

Fierro was working two jobs to help her family, who still live in Mexico, she said.

Maria Magdaleno, 27, an employee at an Arby's restaurant at East Florida Avenue and South Colorado Boulevard, said Fierro would occasionally stop by the restaurant to sell them prepared sweet corn.

Fierro's relatives have yet to be notified, Flores said. She has three daughters and a son, he said.

Rubi-Nava made his first court appearance Wednesday afternoon, where he was advised of the charges against him.

He entered the courtroom shackled, wearing a red jumpsuit, his hair disheveled, with a stubble of a beard and bloodshot eyes. He stared straight ahead during the 30- minute hearing, listening to the proceedings through an interpreter.

The judge agreed to seal the case file and will consider a gag order requested by the defense attorney. Rubi-Nava is being held without bail.

After learning from a detective that her friend down the hall had been killed, Pulgarin said she thought, "Someone must have felt a lot of hatred to have choked and then dragged her."