Background: A home in the community where the victim and her family lived (KUTV/YouTube). Insets (from top to bottom): Alvaro Jose Urbina Rojas and Jeusselem Elieth Genes (Saratoga Springs Police Department).
Days after a Utah husband and wife went missing, authorities found the woman dead in a storage facility and have labeled the husband as a "person of interest" in her death.
The Saratoga Springs Police Department is searching for Alvaro Jose Urbina Rojas, 57, regarding the death of 43-year-old Jeusselem Elieth Genes. The case was sparked by the couple's disappearance on Feb. 26, when they left their home and did not return.
Rojas and Genes had left their Saratoga Springs, Utah, home at about 10 a.m., and family members "were aware" that Rojas was going to take Genes to work, Saratoga Springs Police Chief Andrew Burton said during a Tuesday press conference, local Fox affiliate KSTU reported. That night, when the couple did not return home and family members learned Genes did not show up to work that day, the family called police.
Family members gave officers what they believed to be relevant details. The couple had been married for about 19 years and had come to the U.S. from Venezuela about 10 years ago. They had an adult daughter and a "juvenile-aged son" together, had no serious medical issues, and "had no previous history with law enforcement," Burton said.
Initially, the family "did not believe that either person was in danger."
The couple's family wondered whether the two had been picked up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), but investigators found that not to be the case, Burton said. Family members said they had seen some arguments between the couple over the years, "but never any physical violence." However, "recently, there had been some talk of divorce," the police chief added.
About a day later, family members told police they still had not heard from the couple, and a missing persons case was filed. With federal help, investigators searched for Genes' and Rojas' most recent cellphone activity, learning that hers was turned off but his last "pinged" in the area of Draper, Utah, about 18 miles north of Saratoga Springs.
Through searches for the couple's 2005 gray Toyota Sequoia with Utah plates, investigators learned that it was seen in Las Vegas, Nevada, midday on Feb. 26 — about 400 miles southwest — before relevant credit card "and other purchases" showed up that night in California. Burton then explained how the case reached a new stage.
"It was learned from family members that [Rojas] had a camp trailer in a storage facility in Draper," Burton said, adding that the family members reported going there on Saturday but finding it locked and failing to see anything. On Monday, Saratoga Springs police detectives "obtained a search warrant for the trailer," and upon executing it, detectives found Genes' body inside.
Burton said the area was processed as a crime scene, an autopsy was performed, and the case has been ruled a homicide. The autopsy's results have not yet been publicly released.
Rojas has been listed as a "person of interest" in the case. Burton suggested that he could be considered a suspect if additional evidence is discovered.
The police chief further explained how the couple's disappearance completely caught their family off guard.
"They said, 'We don't understand why this is happening.' They're not suicidal, they don't have medical issues, they haven't had an argument or big fight, or there hasn't been an event or an incident," Burton recounted. "They said this was very unusual for them. Their mother is usually very close-hold checking on kids, and, you know, stuff like that. So for them, it was a big question, totally a mystery to them, as to, you know, what was going on."
Police said that as of Tuesday, the vehicle in which Rojas and Genes left their home a week ago "has not crossed the border into Mexico, so at this time, we believe [it] is still in California."
Comments