Two charged months after burned bodies with gunshots found inside SUV, Alabama cops say
.jpg "Deputies found human remains of three victims in the charred SUV. Two had been shot.")
Two men have been arrested in the deaths of three men whose remains were found in a burned SUV on the side of a wooded county road in Alabama.
Chilton County Sheriff’s Office deputies arrested Noel Garcia Esquivel, 28, from Motevallo and Abraham Pena Perez, 27, from Alabaster on Thursday, Jan. 27. Both men were charged with three counts of murder, according to a news release from the sheriff’s office.
The three bodies were found last summer and the sheriff’s office opened an multi-state investigation that would last about seven months.
After finding the charred SUV on July 2, 2021, investigators provided evidence to the Alabama Department of Forensic Science, the news release said. Authorities identified the three victims as Gabriel Alonzo Rios Jr., 24, Gilberto Munoz Cabrera, 37, and Javier Quintero Gonzalez, 36.
All three men were from the Nashville-Henderson area in Tennessee and were identified through forensic evidence and the victim’s family members in Mexico, deputies said.
“The autopsies completed by the Alabama Department of Forensic Science determined that at least two of the victims suffered from gunshot wounds prior to being burned,” the sheriff’s office said in a news release.
Bail was set at $4.5 million each for Esquivel and Perez.
“Both offenders are in the United States illegally. Information gathered during the investigation indicates that the individuals were involved in drug trafficking,” the sheriff’s office said.
The investigation is ongoing and anyone with information is asked to contact the sheriff’s office at 205-755-4698 or leave a crime tip online.
This story was originally published January 31, 2022 at 4:05 PM with the headline "Two charged months after burned bodies with gunshots found inside SUV, Alabama cops say."
