SALT LAKE COUNTY, Utah — Multiple first-degree felony charges were filed against a Utah man for the alleged murders of three people whose bodies were found in the mountains of Tooele County.
Cesar Matias Sevilla-Aleman was charged with three counts of first-degree felony aggravated murder and three counts of first-degree felony aggravated kidnapping.
FOX 13 News previously reported that three people who went missing from the Salt Lake Valley in 2022 were believed to have been murdered after their bodies were found buried together in April 2023.
“They were kidnapped, and in the process of that kidnapping, ultimately murdered up in the mountains,” said Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill.
Rocio Baneulos-Bustamante, a 29-year-old woman, was reported missing by her mother in late March of 2022.
“Somebody called her and said, ‘Stop looking for her,’” said Gill. “That she had been killed and buried up in the mountains.”
In early April 2022, Carlos Sepulveda-Montes was reported missing to Taylorsville Police. Later, at an unspecified date during the year, 35-year-old Zamir Sanchez-Hernandez was reported missing to Unified Police.
As relatives looked for Bustamante, they received a phone call saying to stop looking because someone had "killed her and buried her in the mountains," the Salt Lake County District Attorney's Office stated in a release.
During the investigation, police discovered a conversation between Sepulveda and Sanchez that said "that he needed to pay a debt of $2,400 or 'they' would take him away," officials said.
“When you talk about it in dollars and cents, that’s just money. It can never rationalize the loss of human life,” said Gill.
Sevilla-Aleman's phone was seized during the investigation and it was discovered his location overlapped with one of the missing victims. Data showed that he was likely in the Rush Valley area, about 12 miles south of Tooele on March 28, 2022.
“On the night in question, he had come back and talked about how they’d shot and murdered some people and buried them up in the hills,” said Gill.
The district attorney’s office says that a witness overheard the group with Mr. Sevilla-Aleman say that they “dug the hole for the men, and the woman was not supposed to be there, but she was shot and killed as well.”
“It just happened that she got caught up in this,” said Gill.
In April 2023, nearly a year after the three victims were reported missing, a team of cadaver dogs were training in the mountains of Tooele County and found human remains.
"Detectives, forensic investigators, and personnel from the Utah Office of the Medical Examiner began removing the human remains from the area," officials said. "During excavation three human bodies were found; they were later identified as Ms. Bustamante, Mr. Sepulveda, and Mr. Sanchez. An autopsy determined their deaths to have been by gunshot wounds."
Sevilla-Aleman was arrested in September 2022 for an unrelated non-fatal shooting at a large, unofficial rodeo party on the shore of Utah Lake.
Sevilla-Aleman was already in jail serving a sentence of five years to life in prison for one count and 3-15 years for the other count over the non-fatal shooting in September 2022 that injured two people.
