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 Vitola (Saratoga Springs Police Department).
A man from Utah is under suspicion of killing his wife after reportedly offering her a ride to work prior to the incident, as indicated by authorities who are actively searching for him.
Alvaro Jose Urbina Rojas, 57, is currently sought in connection with the first-degree murder of 43-year-old Jeusselem Elieth Genes Vitola. This was announced by the Saratoga Springs Police Department on Monday, as new details come to light in this unsettling case.
As previously reported by Law&Crime, both Rojas and Vitola departed from their home in Saratoga Springs, Utah, around 10 a.m. on February 26. According to Saratoga Springs Police Chief Andrew Burton, family members were informed that Rojas intended to drive Vitola to work. This information was shared during a Tuesday press conference broadcasted by local Fox affiliate KSTU.
Concern arose when the couple failed to return home that evening and it was discovered that Vitola had not been present at work that day, prompting family members to contact the police.
Initially, the family did not suspect any immediate danger to either individual, Chief Burton stated. They informed officers that Rojas and Vitola had been married for nearly 19 years and had immigrated to the United States from Venezuela around a decade ago. The couple shared an adult daughter and a teenage son, had no significant health issues, and had not previously encountered any legal troubles.
Despite initial concerns that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) might have detained the couple, investigators determined this was not the case. As another day passed without any communication from the couple, family members grew increasingly worried and continued to report their absence.
Police filed a missing persons case and, with federal help, searched for Rojas’ and Vitola’s most recent cellphone activity, learning that her mobile phone was turned off but that 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 the vehicle was seen in Las Vegas, Nevada, midday on Feb. 26 — about 400 miles southwest of Saratoga Springs — before relevant credit card and “other purchases” that night in California. Burton expressed how the case then reached a new stage.
“It was learned from family members that [Rojas] had a camp trailer in a storage facility in Draper,” the police chief said, adding that the family members reported going there on Saturday but failing to see anything and finding it locked. On Monday, Saratoga Springs police detectives “obtained a search warrant for the trailer,” where they found Vitola’s body inside.
An autopsy was performed on Vitola’s body, and the case was ruled a homicide. And though police initially listed Rojas as a “person of interest,” police have since filed the murder charge against him.
The autopsy revealed that Vitola’s “hands were bound with a zip-tie, and there was a rope wrapped tightly around her hands and body,” according to Salt Lake City-based NBC affiliate KSL. “The results of an autopsy showed that [Vitola] died as the result of severe blunt force trauma to the head, and that there were indications of possible asphyxiation.”
Other details presented a harrowing portrait of a couple on the rocks.
On March 3, investigators reportedly learned that the couple “had been experiencing significant financial problems for approximately the last year, causing serious strain on their relationship.” Vitola had recently told her husband that she wanted a divorce, family members said.
Rojas “had become very jealous and suspicious” of his wife and had been following her, KSL added, citing court records. Investigators believe he may have “purposely tampered” with his wife’s vehicle so that it wouldn’t work, “thus forcing her to ask [him] for a ride to work, potentially for the purpose of giving himself the opportunity to kill [her].”
As of Tuesday, investigators believed Rojas may be in California.
