Francisco Vazquez-Rosas
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- Man indicted in death of estranged wife (1-15-10)
Nobody knows for sure what happened to Teresa Guzman.
The mother of three hasn’t been seen alive since December 2008. Her body hasn’t been found, either.
Investigators believe she was murdered by her estranged husband, 26-year-old Francisco Vazquez-Rosas, who with the help of a Spanish-language interpreter pleaded not guilty Thursday to a charge of murder in district court.
After a lengthy questioning session and a polygraph test last month, police said Vazquez-Rosas confessed to killing Guzman after an argument. He told detectives he put her body into a trash bin and worried every night that police would be waiting for him when he got home. The body is still missing.
His attorney says the confession was coerced and that his client’s constitutional rights have been trampled on.
Vazquez-Rosas is being held without bail despite impassioned arguments from his attorney, Dan Silverstein, who asked Judge James Bixler to release his client on his own recognizance.
“It is unjust to keep a man incarcerated on this type of case on this type of investigation,” Silverstein said. “It is wrong.”
Silverstein said police threatened and harassed Vazquez-Rosas throughout the interview and that they used his two young daughters to manipulate his confession.
According to a police report, Vazquez-Rosas eventually told detectives that on Dec. 13, 2008, he had been with Guzman at an apartment in the 3100 block of South Nellis Boulevard.
Nearly six months passed before she was reported missing. No one remembered seeing her after that day.
Vazquez-Rosas told detectives that at first, Guzman sat on the couch that afternoon and wouldn’t speak to him. Eventually she told him she was planning to leave him and was taking their children with her, the police report says.
An argument and a physical struggle ensued.
Guzman fell as Vazquez-Rosas pushed her out the door, he told detectives. He went back inside and waited before realizing she hadn’t moved. Panicked, he pulled her inside and tried to revive her, according to the police report.
He tried hitting her in the face, kissing her and even rubbing alcohol on her body to try and get her to wake up, but nothing worked, he said. Unsure what to do next, Vazquez-Rosas says he dragged her to the nearest trash bin and put her inside, head-first.
Silverstein said the grueling 10-½ hour interrogation left his client with no choice but to confess.
“Every time I say ‘confession’ in this case, I have to use air quotes,” Silverstein said.
Silverstein wasn’t present during the interrogation but said he has seen videotape of the questioning. Each time Vazquez-Rosas said he was innocent, he was told he was “a liar and a killer,” Silverstein said.
“The only truth that they will recognize for 10 1/2 hours in that room is that he had something to do with the disappearance of his wife,” Silverstein said, adding that for the first 9 ½ hours, Vazquez-Rosas proclaimed his innocence.
Investigators threatened Vazquez-Rosas that he would never see his children again, Silverstein said.
“He doesn’t know the language, customs or whether the police in America are here to help him or hurt him,” Silverstein said. “After this encounter, your honor, I would question that as well.”
Chief Deputy District Attorney Christopher Lalli, who is prosecuting the case, gave the judge a number of reasons to keep Vazquez-Rosas behind bars.
“Whether counsel likes it or not, his client confessed to the crime,” Lalli said.
Lalli said Guzman has family in Mexico who she would have contacted if she had been deported, which she hadn’t done. She hasn’t made phone calls or contacted anyone close to her.
“The victim fell off the grid,” he said.
And, he said, there are witnesses to the alleged crime: “The facts are that two little girls, the defendant’s own children, who were 3 and 6 at the time, witnessed a murder and told family members about it.”
Lalli said the girls gave testimony in front of a grand jury about what they saw. The grand jury indicted Vazquez-Rosas on the murder charge earlier this month.
Releasing Vazquez-Rosas on his own recognizance, Lalli told the judge, would have been “effectually an end to the case.” An immigration detainer against Vazquez-Rosas means he would likely be deported or would flee – either way, not held accountable for the charges, he said.
Guzman was reported missing in May 2009 by her brother-in-law, with whom she and Vazquez-Rosas lived for a time in the apartment on Nellis. The couple had separated about two months before she disappeared.
“This woman who has disappeared had told people she was tired of her life; she was tired of living with her family, she was tired of living with Francisco -- she wanted to start a new life,” Silverstein said. “Those were her own words from the people who reported her missing to the police.”
Her brother-in-law contacted police again in October. He said he had lunch with Guzman the day she went missing and that she was upset because she wanted to move, but her husband wouldn’t let her take their children.
In early December, another relative contacted police and said Guzman’s children had spent the night with her. When she asked the youngest daughter if she missed her mother, the girl replied that she had seen her dad choke her mom and put her in a trash bag.
Detectives interviewed both girls. The youngest denied her mother was dead and said she had seen her on the morning detectives interviewed her.
The detective “knew this was obviously not true,” according to the police report from the time of Vazquez-Rosas’ arrest.
The older daughter did describe to police an altercation that took place between her parents, but Silverstein said she was talking about a documented incident that had happened four months prior to Guzman’s disappearance.
“Normally, the lack of a body would be the biggest problem in the state’s case – it’s not,” he said. The claims of the children who say they have seen their mother alive further bolsters the idea that Vazquez-Rosas didn’t kill her, he said.
Vazquez-Rosas invoked his right to a speedy trial and a trial date was set for March 22.
Silverstein said he plans to file a motion to suppress his client’s confession as well as to file a writ of habeas corpus.
“Whether he is here legally or illegally, the Constitution still applies to Francisco Vazquez-Rosas,” Silverstein said.
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