Inset: Roelmer Sanchez-Garrido appears in court (KSNV). Background: The street where Sanchez-Garrido allegedly strangled his wife in Las Vegas, Nev. (Google Maps).
A Nevada man has been arrested for allegedly strangling his wife during a dispute about their toddler’s upbringing, according to reports from Silver State police.
Roelmer Sanchez-Garrido, aged 38, faces a charge of open murder following the death of his wife, Vanesa Rodrigues-Valdes, as confirmed by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.
The tragic incident reportedly took place in the early hours of Tuesday morning at a home on Esmeralda Avenue, located in central Las Vegas.
According to an arrest report obtained by NBC affiliate KSNV, Sanchez-Garrido himself dialed 911 at approximately 3 a.m., seeking help on the night of the incident.
Police stated that Sanchez-Garrido initially requested medical assistance, reporting his wife as injured. He later informed authorities that Rodrigues-Valdes was not breathing.
When paramedics arrived, they discovered Sanchez-Garrido anxiously pacing the front yard with their 2-year-old daughter by his side, according to law enforcement accounts.
Inside the house, first responders found Rodrigues-Valdes, whose age was not immediately available, lying on the floor with a blanket over her face and body, according to the charging document.
Upon removing the blanket, paramedics saw early signs of rigor mortis along with bruising on the woman’s face and neck, police said.
The woman’s death appeared unnatural, so paramedics called for police, authorities said. The first officer soon arrived and agreed the death looked suspicious due to the marks on the woman’s neck, according to the police report.
The officer then spoke with Sanchez-Garrido who said he and his wife had been arguing about taking their daughter back to Cuba, police said. The man allegedly said that during the argument “something bad happened.”
“Sometime during that argument, it turned physical, resulting in the death of his wife,” a police spokesperson previously told KSNV.
Investigators also spoke with a neighbor who said the couple worked together. Earlier that same day, the neighbor said the woman asked for help hiding the family’s passports so that the man could not gain access to them, according to law enforcement.
The neighbor went on to elaborate about the travel-related dispute, telling investigators the woman wanted to raise the couple’s daughter in Cuba while the man wanted to stay in the United States and work to make more money for the family, police said.
Another neighbor told investigators he awoke around 2 a.m. that night to the sound of someone banging on his window, according to the arrest report. The neighbor then went to inspect the source of the noise and saw Sanchez-Garrido on the other side of his security gate, he said, but did not open it. Still, the neighbor said, he and the defendant spoke.
Sanchez-Garrido handed the neighbor two containers full of jewelry and phone numbers of two family members, police said. He also reportedly said he had done something “very bad,” the neighbor told police. Then, the defendant allegedly asked his neighbor to call 911.
The defendant was taken into custody and questioned at police department headquarters, according to law enforcement.
During a custodial interview, Sanchez-Garrido again relayed the dispute about Cuba and the couple’s daughter, police said. At some point amid the argument, he became upset and grabbed the woman by the throat and squeezed, the defendant allegedly said. After that, he did not remember what happened but next saw that Rodrigues-Valdes had stopped breathing and that she fell to the ground, according to police.
The man said he attempted to perform CPR on the woman but that those attempts were unsuccessful, police said. Sanchez-Garrido said that he took a blanket off the couch and covered the victim’s body so that the couple’s daughter would not see what happened to her mother, according to the charging document.
