While police were investigating, they were notified that a man under arrest on outstanding warrants — 18-year-old Mariano Sanchez — claimed to have information about the remains.
Differing accounts
Sanchez told police he had been taken by several men, tied up and forced to watch someone else be stabbed to death.
According to the affidavit, Sanchez said that a man he knew as "Cholo" had been threatening to kill him over an allegation of stolen money, and that on Friday he and another man, "Diablo," had shown up at Sanchez's home. He didn't open the door and they left.
Sanchez said Cholo called him later Friday and told him to come to his house in the 200 block of Burton Drive or be killed. When Sanchez arrived, he saw a dead man — Diablo — on the living-room floor and left in fear.
But Cholo called him and told him to return, he said, and when he did he saw Cholo digging a large hole in the backyard while others watched.
Other witnesses, however, gave conflicting accounts of the slaying.
According to the affidavit, one witness said
Sanchez mentioned having to leave an earlier meeting because an unknown man "was going to kill somebody and he was going to record it."
Another witness told police that a visibly upset Sanchez told her he was forced to cut off the victim's arms.
Police were also told that Cholo — who had a tattoo on his arm that read "el mas odiado," or "the most hated" — had been showing people pictures of the victim's head and claiming that he killed Diablo as well as Diablo's 17-year-old girlfriend.
