Cops say mother-in-law helped in ditching car
Records reveal basis for charges in slaying of Nicole Montalvo
Investigators say Nicole Montalvo’s mother-in-law helped get rid of her vehicle in the hours after the slain St. Cloud woman was last seen alive, according to records released Friday.
The records revealed the basis for new charges announced this week against Wanda Rivera, 60, who was booked into the Osceola County Jail Thursday afternoon on felony counts of accessory after the fact to murder and evidence tampering.
Montalvo’s estranged husband, 32-year-old Christopher Otero-Rivera, and father-inlaw, 63-year-old Angel Rivera, are accused of second-degree murder and abuse of a body in her killing.
Three days after Montalvo disappeared Oct. 21, her 1999 gold Honda Accord was found abandoned at the intersection of Big Sky Boulevard and Highway 192, about 8 miles away from the Ri
veras’ home on Hixon Avenue. The 33-year-old woman was last seen dropping off her 8-year-old son at the house where Otero-Rivera lived with his parents, brother and two renters.
Cell site mapping records show Montalvo’s phone never left the home, Detective Cole Miller wrote in a supplemental report.
More than two hours after Montalvo was last seen alive, surveillance cameras captured Angel Rivera’s 1992 silver Chevrolet truck driving near the area where her car was left and then back to Hixon Avenue. Montalvo’s husband did not leave the house during that time according to GPS data from his ankle monitor. His brother Nicholas Rivera testified he was at work, which was verified by time card records, the detective wrote.
One tenant of the family told deputies she never left the home that day while the other was not in town during the killing, leaving Angel and Wanda Rivera as the only people in the house who could have disposed of Montalvo’s car, according to the report.
“We know it takes more than one person to drop off a car and have a ride back to the home,” Miller wrote.
During the 2019 trial of Toni Rocker, a woman accused of helping Otero-Rivera kidnap Montalvo in October 2018 and threaten to kill her, Angel Rivera took notes on a yellow notepad about how cell phone records and mapping are used in a criminal investigation.
The notepad was later collected by the Sheriff ’s Office as evidence, the report said. Rocker was acquitted by a jury.
“I believe Angel used this learned information during the murder of Nicole Montalvo,” Miller said. “This would explain why Angel and Wanda’s phones stay on the property and do not travel with them while they dispose of Nicole’s car.”
Wanda Rivera’s attorney did not immediately respond to request for comment. Montalvo’s body was burned, cut into pieces and buried on properties belonging to the Rivera family.
Prosecutors previously admitted they were not sure how or when she was killed, but in motions filed Thursday, they said forensic anthropologist John Schultz would testify Montalvo’s body was dismembered using “multiple objects or tools” and the process would have “taken considerable time.”
The young woman’s body parts were found buried in multiple locations on the Riveras’ properties.
“All of these remains were found buried so deep in the ground that heavy machinery was necessary to unearth them,” Assistant State Attorney Ryan Williams wrote.
A “plethora” of cutting tools were found on the property, Williams said.
Schultz’s analysis of Montalvo’s body said it was possible at least three different tools, including a powered blade, were used during the process that involved “cutting, hacking, and physically breaking bone,” one motion said.
“Despite the extensive dismemberment, and an extensive search of multiple properties and locations thereon, law enforcement only identified a few drops of blood, indicating thought and planning was involved in Ms. Montalvo’s murder,” Williams wrote.
Although Nicholas Rivera told investigators he saw his family members with Montalvo’s bloodied corpse in their garage, a DNA report determined blood found in the area did not belong to Montalvo or Otero-Rivera, records show.
Prior to her arrest this week, Wanda Rivera had earlier been accused of providing false information to law enforcement. She was released hours after booking Thursday on a $20,000 bond, jail spokeswoman Hope Hicka said.
Otero-Rivera and his father are being held at the Osceola County Jail without bond. Prosecutors want the three family members accused in Montalvo’s killing to jointly stand trial, which is scheduled to start July 13.