Eltopia man shot his friend in the head 3 times and wrapped him in tarp, say deputies
A 19-year-old Nicaraguan man was no stranger to the home where he was found dead.
Reynaldo Rodriguez-Hernandez stayed there for several weeks about two months ago, and frequently returned to visit his friend Pedro Bucio.
But their friendship soured on Friday night and investigators believe Bucio shot the 19-year-old in the head three times.
He then wrapped the teen’s body in a tarp and stuck him inside a storage room of the Eltopia house where Bucio lived with his parents, said Franklin County sheriff’s detectives.
He then took off for Kennewick where he was arrested Monday by U.S. Marshals and Kennewick police at a motel.
The 32-year-old appeared briefly in court Tuesday on charges of first-degree murder.
Bucio doesn’t have any recent felony convictions, but between the seriousness of the crime and hiding from investigators, Deputy Prosecutor Dave Corkrum asked for $1 million bail.
Defense Attorney Ian Sinclair reserved the right to argue for a lower amount later, and Judge Sam Swanberg set bail at $1 million.
Due to the closures put in place to slow the spread of the coronavirus, Bucio won’t appear in court again until early May when he is expected to enter a plea.
Shot three times
An off-duty Connell police officer called sheriff’s deputies just after 12:30 p.m. Saturday to report the body found inside his aunt’s home in the rural farming community north of Pasco, according to court documents filed Tuesday.
Inside a room in the northeast corner of the home on Tuck Road, police found Rodriguez-Hernandez’s body wrapped in a plastic tarp. When he was X-rayed at Lourdes Medical Center, investigators found the remains three bullets. Any of the shots would likely have been fatal, said the documents.
And an autopsy conducted Tuesday concluded he was killed by the shots.
As they searched the home, deputies turned up several guns and spent and unspent cartridges, but they found no handguns that Bucio owned despite having a concealed weapons permit that expired in February, investigators said.
He also was the only person who normally went into the storage room, said the documents. His mother said she hadn’t been in the room for two weeks, and his father hadn’t entered the room for two months.
Bucio’s girlfriend Katherine Covarrubias, 26, also stays at the home. She was gone when officers arrived Saturday, but arrested later on an outstanding warrant from Oregon on drug-related charges.
While she admitted to being at the house Friday, she told investigators she left that afternoon shortly after two others, Reece Baird, 21, and Guadalupe Sanchez, 29, arrived.
Police tracked Baird and Sanchez to a trailer on Hunters Pond. Baird had a gun despite being a convicted felon and was taken to the Franklin County jail for unlawful gun possession.
Sanchez was booked on several warrants.
Sanchez previously was charged with second-degree murder for the May 2018 killing of Michelle Hudnall of West Richland.
She pleaded guilty in Franklin County Superior Court to first-degree rendering criminal assistance. She admitted that she helped move Hudnall’s body to an embankment in north Pasco.
This story was originally published April 7, 2020 at 6:55 PM.