Julio Caesar Valdez, Stockton, California man wanted in the beating death of his girlfriend, Alicia Montejano and her teen son, Reuel Huerta. History of ongoing domestic abuse.
The boyfriend of a California mother of three is wanted in the slaying of the woman and her teen son, whose bodies were found beaten to death by the woman’s daughter just days before Christmas.
Alicia Montejano, 43, and her 19-year-old son Reuel Huerta were found beaten inside an apartment complex on the 2500 block of Belleview Ave in Stockton, Calif. on Dec. 23.
Julio Caesar Valdez, 38, is accused of leaving the battered bodies inside the apartment, roughly 51 miles south of Sacramento, before fleeing the area in a gray four-door sedan, the Stockton Police Department said in a Facebook release.
History of ongoing domestic abuse
Valdez was described as dangerous with KCRA reporting the suspect has a checkered past including past abuses. Cops said the mother and son’s beating deaths were ‘domestic related,’ with the victims’ family saying that Montejano and Valdez’s relationship had been abusive.
It was unclear if there was a restraining order against Valdez, but police say he did not force his way into the apartment.
Montejano’s daughter made the gruesome discovery of her mother and younger brother after not hearing from them all day.
‘I found them,’ Montejano’s daughter Marissa Vigil told ABC10. ‘I couldn’t believe it. It felt like I was dying at the time. I couldn’t breathe, and I still couldn’t get the pictures out of my head.’
‘She’ll always keep a smile on your face and always make you laugh no matter what,’ she added. ‘I was her best friend.’
Vigil called 911 at around 11 p.m. Monday.
‘It’s ripped a big piece of our hearts out,’ the daughter said during a Tuesday night vigil. ‘We want this man caught.’
Autopsies pending into mother and teen son’s deaths
Montejano and Huerta were both pronounced dead inside the apartment.
Huerta’s body was found with a laceration while police have yet to disclose the condition of Montejano’s body pending the results of their autopsies.
‘The male had a laceration, which, appears to be the cause of death there, pending any other further autopsy. As far as the female, there was no gunshot, wounds or anything like that,’ the Stockton Police Department told the KCRA.
A GoFundMe fundraiser set up to assist in burial costs for the slain mother and son.
Stockton police have opened a homicide investigation into the slayings and are offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to the Valdez’s arrest.
No known murder motive was immediately known.
