Attorney gets more time to prepare in local murder case
Tuesday’s hearing in the case for one of two teenagers accused of killing a cab driver has been rescheduled by a Yuma County Superior Court judge. The change was in order to give his attorney more time to continue preparing the case.
When asked to provide the court with an update on the status of the case, attorney Cynthia Brubaker of the Yuma County Public Defender’s Office asked for a 60-day continuance, saying she has received a large amount of discovery and is currently going through it.
She added that she expects even more is coming and will need time to review it once she receives it. She also stated that by statute, due to the nature of the charges, it has been designated a complex case, so there is still a lot of time remaining to resolve it.
A complex case designation adds 90 to 120 days (depending on if the defendant is in custody or out of custody) to the total maximum amount of time that the prosecutor has to bring the case to trial.
Normally the prosecution has 150 days from the time of the arraignment to take a case to trial.
Brubaker is representing 16-year-old Tyrus Nathan Twist, who has been charged as an adult with first-degree premeditated murder, conspiracy, theft of means of transportation and armed robbery with a deadly weapon in the shooting death of 55-year-old Guillermo Sotelo, of San Luis Rio Colorado, Son. Mexico.
He remains in custody at Yuma County jail on a $500,000 cash-only bond. The prosecution contends that Sotelo, whose body was found lying a short distance off the roadway in the desert, was killed over $30. Twist has pleaded not guilty to the charges. Upon hearing no objection from the prosecution, Superior Court Judge Stephen Rouff, who is presiding over the case, gave Brubaker seven weeks of preparation time, scheduling Twist’s next hearing for 8:30 a.m. on Dec. 18.
Sotelo, who was a driver for Crazy 8’s Taxi Company, was reported missing July 30 early in the morning to the Yuma Police Department. He was last believed to be en route to Somerton to pick up a passenger. He was driving a turquoise 2001 Honda taxi.
His body was found the following day, shot at least once. The taxi, which had a flat tire, was found at about 7:10 p.m. on Aug. 7 in an alley near 28th Street and Avenue A in Yuma.
According to information provided by Somerton police, during the investigation, information was developed leading to the identification of two suspects, Twist and 17-year-old Hailey Dawn Hoover, and that evidence linked them both to the crime.
A few days later, Cocopah Tribal Police, acting on an attempt to locate issued by Somerton police, found a stolen vehicle that the suspects were believed to be driving. When officers attempted to stop the vehicle, Twist and Hoover fled.
After a short pursuit by Somerton and Cocopah Police Departments into Somerton, Twist and Hoover were taken into custody without incident.