Sheriff: Suspect was mother’s boyfriend
12-year-old kidnap victim was daughter, sister of dismembered murder victims
The woman and boy found murdered and dismembered in a Tallapoosa County, Alabama, mobile home last week were the girlfriend of the suspect and her young son.
Court records identified the adult victim as Sandra Vazquez Ceja. The second victim — a male child under the age of 14 — was identified only as “AOGV.”
Tallapoosa County Sheriff Jimmy Abbett said Ceja was the girlfriend of Jose Paulino Pascual-reyes, 37, who is charged with three counts of capital murder, two counts of corpse abuse and one count of kidnapping.
Pascual-reyes is charged with capital murder of a child under the age of 14, capital murder during a kidnapping and capital murder of two or more victims.
The bodies were discovered after Ceja’s 12-yearold daughter was found by a motorist walking along a rural road on Aug. 1.
Abbett said the 12-year-old girl was Ceja’s daughter, and the slain boy was her son. Pascual-reyes was not the father of the children.
Abbett said the couple and the children moved to the mobile home at 3547 County Road 34 in rural Dadeville in February.
They had previously lived in another state, but Abbett declined to name that state because Alabama investigators are speaking with officials there about the case.
Abbett said Pascual-reyes is an undocumented immigrant who has previously been deported from the U.S. He said he has not yet been able to determine when that deportation took place, and said authorities don’t know when and how he re-entered the U.S.
Ceja and the children came to the U.S. from Mexico in 2017. Ceja, at the time of her death, had formal asylum in the U.S. and was awaiting a hearing on the matter.
Abbett said the 12-yearold girl is in the custody of DHR and is doing well.
“She’s a very strong young lady,’’ Abbett said.
The girl was able to tell
investigators that she was bound to a bedpost for nearly a week and given alcohol to keep her in a drugged state. Asked if she was able to tell investigators about the murder, Abbett said the girl had been under the influence much of that time.
Pascual-reyes is being held without bond. He made his first appearance in court with the use of a translator, Abbett said.
On Aug. 4, a judge appointed Lafayette attorneys Mark Carlton and William Crutchfield of Carlton, Crutchfield & Maddox to represent Pascual-reyes. The attorneys have filed a motion for a preliminary hearing to be held.
Carlton said since they were just appointed, they have not yet met Pascual-reyes and therefore declined comment.
Records state the killings happened about 12 a.m. on July 24.
Charging documents against Pascual-reyes state the little
boy was fatally bludgeoned by the suspect, who used his hands and feet. The woman was smothered with a pillow.
Both victims were then “cut into small pieces at the joints in order to hide evidence,’’ according to depositions in the cases. Vazquez was killed in the course of Pascual-reyes trying to hold her hostage.
The investigation began Aug. 1, about 8:30 a.m., when a passerby spotted the 12-yearold girl walking in the area of 3547 County Road 34 in rural Dadeville. The motorist picked up the child, and immediately called 911.
The girl, according to records, had been tied to a bed post for almost a week and had been given alcohol to keep her in a drugged state. During that time, she was assaulted in the head area.
The girl chewed her way out of her restraints to the point that she broke the braces on her teeth.