9 plead guilty in killing of abducted mother of 2

North Georgia rideshare driver allegedly tortured.

Nine people accused of being associates of a drug trafficking organization have pleaded guilty in connection with the kidnapping and death of a North Georgia rideshare driver in 2021, prosecutors said.

Rossana Delgado, a married mother of two, was found dead April 20, 2021, in a mountain cabin in Gilmer County, nearly 100 miles from her Barrow County home. The 37-year-old was allegedly tortured by some associates of the organization there before they dismembered and burned her body, according to the GBI.

“They subsequently concealed and destroyed evidence of the murder of Delgado,” the state agency said in a statement. “Additionally, associates of the (organization) secured transportation and facilitated the fleeing of associates of the (organization) to Mexico to prevent their apprehension.”

In May 2021, three suspects, Oscar Garcia, Megan Colone and Juan Antonio Vega, were arrested in Reynosa, Mexico. Colone was taken into custody while traveling with her children, who were later returned safely to the United States, the GBI said. Garcia and Vega, a Cobb County resident, were apprehended together.

A month later, alleged associate Juan Ayala-rodriguez was arrested in Durango, Mexico, and extradited to the U.S. The GBI said the five other suspects to plead guilty were arrested at various times during the investigation. “This matter not only spanned across numerous local and state jurisdictions, but also involved the assistance of the federal government in extraditing defendants from Mexico,” Appalachian Judicial Circuit District Attorney B. Alison Sosebee said.

Four days before she was found dead, Delgado had been lured to the Plaza Fiesta shopping mall in Dekalb County under the belief it was for a shopping trip, according to the GBI.

She was last seen on security footage with another woman at the Latin mall on Buford Highway in Brookhaven. Agents identified Carolina Jazmin Rodriguez-ramirez of Oklahoma as the woman shopping with Delgado at Ross and the Mercado Fresco supermarket the day she disappeared.

After being abducted, Delgado was bound at a residence in Dekalb and then taken to other locations in Clayton and Gilmer counties over the next several days, the GBI said. She later arrived at the cabin, which was booked through an online vacation rental company using a stolen identity, according to the state agency.

Rodriguez-ramirez and two other murder suspects — Marietta resident Maria Katherine Encarnacion and Mario Alberto Barbosa-juarez of Oklahoma City — are still at large.

In February 2022, a Gilmer grand jury returned an indictment against 14 defendants. The GBI declined to comment or identify the two other people in the indictment who either haven’t pleaded guilty or remain at large.

The nine people who entered guilty pleas did so before the trial was set to begin May 1.

On March 9, Garcia pleaded guilty to charges of malice murder, kidnapping, concealing the death of another, aggravated battery and violation of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations act (RICO). Garcia, who was the only person facing a murder charge to be convicted, will spend the rest of his life in prison. The other eight suspects pleaded guilty and were sentenced April 26.

Ayala-rodriguez and Vega pleaded guilty to charges of kidnapping, concealing the death of another, aggravated battery and violation of the RICO act, the state agency said. Ayala-rodriguez was sentenced to life in prison, while Vega was sentenced to 70 years, with the first 30 to be served in prison.

Colone and five other alleged associates — Eva Galicia Martinez, Terri Amanda Garner, Patrick Harvard, Calvin Harvard and Shawn Callaway — all pleaded guilty to violation of the RICO act. Colone was sentenced to 18 years in prison, while Martinez will serve 13 years, according to the GBI. The other four were sentenced to an undisclosed amount of prison time followed by probation, the GBI said, without elaborating.

The state agency has not said how all of the suspects were linked to Delgado’s death.

In 2021, authorities said they believed the remaining suspects were in Mexico. Anyone with information on their whereabouts is asked to contact the GBI or call 911.

“It is my hope, even though this matter remains open, that the resolutions and sentences entered at this time will assist the family and loved ones of Rossana Delgado in beginning to obtain closure,” Sosebee said.