4 years after body found in tarp in Eltopia, former roommate faces prison sentence
An Eltopia man will go to prison for his role in the death of a man found wrapped in a tarp in his home.
Pedro Bucio, 36, entered an Alford plea to conspiracy to commit manslaughter on Tuesday in Franklin County Superior Court.
An Alford plea means that Bucio doesn’t admit to committing the crime, but felt he could have been convicted of first-degree murder if there was a trial.
Bucio has been awaiting trial in the Franklin County jail for nearly four years since being tied to the death of his former roommate Reynaldo Rodriguez-Hernandez, 19.
Rodriguez-Hernandez was discovered wrapped in a tarp in a room in a home at 200 Tuck Road in Eltopia on April 4, 2020. Bucio lived at the home with his parents and his girlfriend.
His crime carries a prison sentence between nearly five years and just over six years.
Prosecutors plan to ask for the maximum end of the sentencing range, according to court documents.
His sentencing hearing is planned for next week, his attorney Shelley Ajax said.
Franklin County sheriff’s detectives began investigating the shooting after getting a call from an off-duty Connell police officer on April 4, 2020. The officer reported that a body was found inside his aunt’s home in the rural farming community north of Pasco, according to court documents.
Inside a room in the northeast corner of the home on Tuck Road, police found Rodriguez-Hernandez’s body wrapped in a plastic tarp. When the remains were X-rayed at Lourdes Medical Center, investigators found three bullets. Any of the shots would likely have been fatal, said the documents.
An autopsy also concluded he was killed by the shots.
During interviews with people who lived at the house, investigators learned that Rodriguez-Hernandez had only lived there for a period of several weeks starting two months before the shooting.
As they searched the home, deputies turned up several guns and spent and unspent cartridges, but they found no handguns that Bucio owned despite having a concealed weapons permit that expired in February of that year, investigators said.
Bucio also was the only person who normally went into the storage room, said the documents. His mother said she hadn’t been in the room for two weeks, and his father hadn’t entered the room for two months.
A second man, Marco Antonio Lombera, 32, helped provide Bucio a place to hide after the body was discovered. He pleaded guilty to first-degree rendering criminal assistance and is serving a year and eight month prison sentence, according to court documents.
