Wife says husband killed her cousin following argument: docs
BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) — A woman whose body was found in an almond orchard was killed by her cousin’s husband following a drunken argument, according to witness statements contained in sheriff’s reports.
Claudia Morales Vazquez, 33, was found dead last month in an almond orchard about a half-mile north of Superior Road and Stockdale Highway. She had suffered head trauma, say reports filed in Superior Court that recently became available.
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Investigators learned Vazquez had been living with her cousin, Noralina Vasquez-Hernandez, 36, and the cousin’s husband, Jaime Regalado-Avalos, 43.
Regalado-Avalos is charged with first-degree murder His wife, charged as an accessory, allegedly used bleach and other cleaning materials to wipe down their apartment on Normandy Drive after the killing, the filings say.
The couple are due back in court next month.
A farm manager called deputies at about 8:20 a.m. on April 26 to report a woman’s body had been found, the filings say.
Thirty minutes later law enforcement received another call — this one from Vazquez’s father, who said his daughter called him in tears the night before, asking him to pick her up. The father told deputies he went to the apartment where his daughter had been staying but there was no answer.
She wasn’t answering her phone either, he said. He asked them to perform a welfare check.
Believing Vazquez was possibly in danger, deputies entered the apartment through a window. They immediately noticed a strong smell of bleach, the reports say.
No one was inside.
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Soon after, the deputies with the father were notified about the discovery of a body not far from their location.
“During this time, I got a sudden feeling and wondered if the deceased body located in the orchards was (Vazquez),” an investigator wrote.
That hunch was confirmed.
A search then began for Vasquez-Hernandez and Regalado-Avalos.
That afternoon, California Highway Patrol officers stopped the couple at a rest stop in Lebec. The couple’s children told investigators they were headed to Mexico.
Interviewed separately, the couple claimed there’d been an argument and Vazquez had been kicked out, according to the filings. Regalado-Avalos told investigators he drove her to the Greyhound station and she left.
His wife gave a different account after detectives accused her of lying.
She said they’d started drinking that afternoon. Around 1 or 2 a.m., Vazquez began asking about the father of Vasquez-Hernandez’s daughters.
The father — not Regalado-Avalos — belonged to her past, and they shouldn’t discuss him, Vasquez-Hernandez said she told her cousin.
Regalado-Avalos became upset, she said, and ordered Vazquez to leave. Her cousin continued to argue before she called her father and ran crying to the bathroom, Vasquez-Hernandez said according to the reports.
The argument resumed later, she said. Her cousin called her husband a “show off,” and he responded by saying she better not threaten him, Vasquez-Hernandez told detectives.
Regalado-Avalos broke her cousin’s cellphone, Vasquez-Hernandez said. Then he told Vasquez-Hernandez to go to her bedroom and close the door, according to her statement in the filings.
“(Her husband) said he was going to show (Vazquez) who he was,” Vasquez-Hernandez told detectives.
She went to her bedroom and shut the door. Then she heard the sound of heavy breathing — as if someone was gasping for air.
“Vasquez-Hernandez said she opened the door and saw (Vazquez) on the ground, on her back,” an investigator wrote. “Regalado-Avalos was standing over her with his right foot pushing down on the left side of (Vazquez’s) neck.”
Vasquez-Hernandez said she removed her husband’s foot, but he grabbed a knife and ordered her back to the bedroom. She didn’t interfere further.
Her husband later carried Vazquez from the apartment, she told investigators. She said she didn’t think Vazquez was dead — she believed her husband had left her in an area where she’d be found and given help.
“Vasquez-Hernandez said she did not know Regalado-Avalos was capable of doing something like this,” an investigator wrote.
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