From Ponzi schemes to deadly shootings — here are Tri-Cities’ top crime stories of 2019
Tri-Cities law enforcement were kept busy in 2019 investigating violent crimes including the gang-related killing of a pregnant Kennewick woman and the mysterious disappearance of a grandmother whose body has yet to be found.
But detectives also had their fair share of other crime handle their share of calls — including some unusual ones — for property crimes, drug trafficking and child pornography.
Here are the crime stories that Tri-City Herald readers viewed the most in the past year:
Ponzi scheme
Investors lose big with alleged Ponzi scheme by 2 Tri-Cities businessmen
Gabriel Ramos filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy in 2014, then months later started “raising funds” while portraying himself as a successful businessman.
Franklin County prosecutors say the web designer ended up scamming at least 11 investors in a $500,000 Ponzi scheme.
Ramos, 29, allegedly used the money for personal expenses, including his wedding in Pasco and a honeymoon in Dubai and the Maldives.
His co-defendant, Miguel A. Miranda Jr. was one of Ramos’ early investors who went on to solicit people he knew through his real estate dealings with Coldwell Banker Tomlinson Group in Kennewick, according to court documents.
The two promised “huge profits” to people — like a Pasco senior citizen battling lung cancer — who wanted to invest their personal savings in local small business borrowers with a guaranteed 30-percent return, documents said.
They were charged in May with 22 felony counts each for theft and securities fraud. Trial is set for March 18.
Ramos also is charged in Benton County with allegedly passing bad checks in an attempt to keep the complicated scheme going.
Mexican cartel
Pasco man moved money and drugs for a Mexican cartel
A 24-year-old Pasco man in August was ordered to federal prison for 18 years after admitting his role in a large-scale transnational drug trafficking operation.
Braulio Jimenez helped move bulk amounts of drugs and cash proceeds for a Mexican-based criminal enterprise in Culiacan, Sinaloa.
A search of his home in early 2018 turned up more than 19,000 Fentanyl-laced pills, 40 pounds of heroin, 4 pounds of methamphetamine and 23 pounds of cocaine. He also had a cache of guns and drug ledgers.
Jimenez’s wife, his older brother and his wife’s sister and brother-in-law also were indicted.
Teen gang murder
Pregnant Kennewick woman shot dead by teen gang members
Andrea M. Nuñez was nearly five months pregnant when she was shot dead May 5 while walking with her boyfriend in an east Kennewick neighborhood.
Court documents say the alleged killers approached Nuñez intending to intimidate or assault her with a gun.
It was described by police as a gang-related shooting. One suspect yelled “Westside” and then opened fire after Nuñez replied with a shout of “Southside.”
Home security cameras show the two 17-year-old suspects — Adrian Mendoza and Marin J. Rivera Jr. — as they seem to follow Nuñez and her boyfriend.
Mendoza was charged as an adult in Benton County with first-degree murder. His trial is Feb. 24.
Rivera’s second-degree murder case has been on hold for two months while he undergoes a mental health evaluation.
Fatal hit-and-run
Tipster identifies wanted driver in fatal Pasco hit-and-run
A 27-year-old father of four was walking home from a birthday celebration when he was hit and killed while trying to cross the on-ramp for Interstate 182 at Argent Road in November 2018.
Martin Perez Garcia’s body wasn’t found for hours.
The alleged hit-and-run driver escaped identification for almost a year, but in early October he was arrested following an anonymous tip.
Sergio Garin Villalobos, 33, now faces a May 6 trial for failing to stop and tampering with a witness, both felonies.
Prosecutors say that if the Kennewick man had remained at the crash scene, he might not have been criminally charged unless police could prove he was impaired at the time.
Unsolved Richland murder
Deadly shooting on Richland sidewalk remains unsolved
A young father was shot on the sidewalk near his home in the early hours of Jan. 14. Almost one year later, no arrests have been made in the death of Emilio Elizondo.
Elizondo, 21, died from a gunshot wound to his head.
He had moved with his girlfriend and their two young kids into the duplex just five months earlier.
Investigators have said the attack appears targeted. It was the first murder in Richland in five years.
Teen stabbing
Richland teen tries to steal man’s weed; victim ends up stabbed 11 times
A Richland girl set up an older teen to be attacked and tried to steal 2 pounds of marijuana he had stashed in a car trunk.
But the thick snow and ice that blanketed the Tri-Cities in mid-February foiled the girl’s plans when she slipped trying to get around the car and ended up closing the trunk prematurely.
The driver was stabbed 11 times while trying to run away but survived.
In November, Ashley A. Taylor, 14, pleaded guilty in Juvenile Court to first-degree robbery with a gun and was sentenced to two years and eight months in a state Juvenile Rehabilitation Administration facility.
Grandmother still missing
Grandmother goes missing; investigators blame relatives for violent attack
Estela Torres Rodriguez was last seen the morning of March 28 inside a Franklin County home.
Since then, an international manhunt for her alleged killers has led to one man returning from Mexico to face charges while another remains in hiding.
The suspects are all family members.
Sheriff’s deputies and prosecutors say even though Estela’s body has never been found, they have enough evidence to show a violent attack happened inside that home north of Pasco.
Estela and her husband of 30 years had recently separated. He continued to profess his love for his wife, but she did not want to get back together, according to family and investigators.
The 54-year-old grandmother’s son, Clemente Rodriguez Torres, has a Feb. 19 trial for first-degree murder after surrendering at the United States-Mexico border in California in September.
His father and Estela’s husband, Tiburcio Larios Rodriguez, is believed to be hiding out in Mexico. His murder warrant remains active.
A second son, Carlos Rodriguez Torres, spent just over one month in the county jail before prosecutors dismissed their murder case against him. He denied being involved in his mother’s death.
West Richland 911 murder
West Richland man is eerily calm with dispatch after admitting murder
Alisa J. Brewer had been at an office holiday party in December 2018 when William C. Lee — a former co-worker and occasional intimate partner — joined the festivities.
Less than an hour later back at Lee’s West Richland apartment, Lee made a chilling 911 call to report that Brewer was dead and he was going to be next because he didn’t want to live life in a box.
That 44-minute 911 recording and dispatch logs were released a few months later to the Tri-City Herald, and showed how dispatchers and law enforcement handled the not-so-typical call after a murder.
Brewer, 53, was found strangled to death and had been beaten.
Lee, 25, pleaded guilty in September to second-degree murder with the aggravating circumstances. He was sentenced in October to 20 years in prison.
Pasco officers stabbed, suspect shot
Two Pasco officers stabbed and suspect killed in December confrontation
Detectives investigating the officer-involved shooting of a Pasco teen say he might still be alive if it weren’t for his cousin allegedly interfering in the arrest.
Martin Mendoza, 24, claims he was trying to protect his younger cousin and prevent the 18-year-old from going back to jail.
But when Mendoza grabbed a Pasco officer by his bulletproof vest and the two started fighting, his cousin was able to break free from two other Pasco officers and stab them with a double-edged knife, court documents show.
One of the wounded officers then shot and killed Alejandro Betancourt-Mendoza, 18, before another officer applied a tourniquet and drove him to the hospital for emergency surgery.
The three officers are now on leave pending an independent investigation, and Mendoza is in jail on $1 million bail and charged with assault.
Child pornography
The co-owner of a longtime downtown Kennewick business was arrested in July following a 2-year investigation revealed a massive stash of child pornography at the business.
Daniel J. Bunch, 39, was described by investigators as “a big fish in the distribution game of child pornography.”
He was arrested following an extensive investigation that started with the FBI.
Members of the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force were tipped off to Bunch’s alleged activity by an FBI agent in Spokane, who had downloaded both images and video files from a then-unknown user on a file-sharing network.
The user had been distributing the child pornography since at least February 2017, court documents said.