7th Suspect Sought In Gruesome Murder Of Georgia Mother Who Drove For Taxi Service
Authorities have announced that a seventh individual is now suspected in relation to the murder of a Georgia mother of two who disappeared in April after picking up a ride share passenger and was later found dismembered and burned in a home around 100 miles away.
A murder warrant has been issued for Maria Katherine Chavez Encarnacion, a 28-year-old Georgia woman who has now been added to the list of those suspected in the death of 37-year-old mother of two Rossana Delgado. Encarnacion’s last known location was Mexico, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said in a Friday statement.
On the day she vanished, Delgado told her husband that she was going to pick up a fare in the Atlanta suburb of Chamblee, the Associated Press reported. She was seen shopping with a woman later identified via surveillance footage as Megan Colone, one of the multiple suspects in her death. Atlanta news outlet WXIA reported that Delgado had last spoken to her husband around 7 p.m., just before picking up a ride-share passenger, according to her friends.
Delgado’s husband then traced her possible final movements via her phone.
"He followed the signal to a house in Decatur...apparently the signal was there for one hour and they took off and ended up in a public storage in Covington Highway," Delgado’s friend Diana Alvarez told WXIA.
Once there, her husband discovered a bloody face mask. He called police, who found Delgado's body on April 20 at a rental cabin in Cherry Log in Georgia's northern mountains.
Rossana Delgado Photo: NCME
Initially, four suspects were named in the case: Colone, 30, of Stone Mountain; Juan Ayala-Rodriguez, 35, of Gainesville; Oscar Manuel Garcia, 26, of Austel; and Mario Alberto Barbosa-Juarez, 29, of Oklahoma City. A fifth suspect, Carolina Jazmin Rodriguez-Ramirez, 28, was named on May 26 after she was identified as the person seen with Delgado on store security footage before her death.
Colone, Garcia, and Vega were all taken into custody in Mexico on May 15, the Gilmer County Sheriff’s Office said. Ayala-Rodriguez, Barbosa-Juarez and Rodriguez-Ramirez are all still at large.
Megan Colone AKA Grace Beda, Mario Barbosa-Juarez, Oscar Garcia, Juan Ayala-Rodriguez and the 5th suspect. Photo: GBI
Calvin Harvard, 28, of Covington, was also arrested and charged with tampering with evidence and theft for receiving stolen property in relation to the case.
Investigators have not announced a possible motive for the murder of Delgado, how she may have known the suspects, or the cause of her death.
GBI has asked the public for help in locating Encarnacion; anyone with info has been asked to call 1-800-597-TIPS or to reach out to them online.
