Waitresses admit role in taco stand murder plot
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May 11, 2009 - 12:33 PM
Jeremy Roebuck

EDINBURG - Two taco stand waitresses who convinced a regular customer to kill one of their husbands last year have pleaded guilty to charges related to the crime, prosecutors said Monday.

Julissa Gonzalez, 24, was sentenced to 10 years in prison Friday after admitting her role in the plot that left her common-law spouse dead. Her co-worker - Enedelia Canales, 20 - pleaded guilty to murder on Monday and received a 17-year sentence.

"I think Ms. Canales has realized that she needed to make some reparation for what she did," her attorney Judith Peña-Morales said. "I know that she felt it."

Gonzalez's attorney - L. Aron Peña - did not return calls for comment Monday.

Prosecutors allege the women hatched the plan in October 2008 and lured 42-year-old Juan Antonio Morales to the isolated spot northwest of Mission near the intersection of 3 Mile Line and Scheurbach Roads, where sheriff's deputies later found his body. He had been shot multiple times in the chest.

According to court documents, both women confessed soon after their arrests to wanting Morales dead.

Gonzalez told investigators that her husband was an excessively jealous womanizer and abused her often. He also threatened to have his wife, an illegal immigrant, deported and her child taken away, according to a criminal complaint filed in her case.

Canales said she helped plot the murder because she had feelings for Gonzalez.

"They had a very strong friendship," Peña-Morales said Monday. "I think she wanted to help her friend out."

Investigators believe the women met their alleged triggerman - Eduardo Leme de Oliveira, 37, a Brazilian national -- because he frequently dined at Taqueria Don Felipe, the restaurant west of Alton where both women worked.

Although a warrant was issued for his arrest within two weeks of Morales' murder, de Oliveira remains at large and is believed to be hiding in Mexico.

Authorities urge anyone with information on his whereabouts to contact the Hidalgo County Sheriff's Office at (956) 668-8477.


http://www.themonitor.com/articles/year ... rales.html