By Micheal Chukwuebuka, Reporting
TWO suspects, on Monday, were in custody in connection with the deaths of two Colorado children whose remains were found last month, one in a concrete-filled container and the other in a suitcase in a car’s trunk, jail records show.
According to police in Pueblo, Jesus Dominguez and Corena Rose Minjarez were arrested last week on two counts each of first-degree murder and abuse of a corpse in the deaths of children Jesus Dominguez Jr. and Yesenia Dominguez.
Investigators said they had not been aware that either was missing until last month after police made the grim discovery of Yesenia’s body. Neither had been seen since the summer of 2018, when Jesus was 5 and Yesenia was 3, police said.
According to our source, NBC affiliate KUSA of Denver, the elder Dominguez is their father and he is in a relationship with Minjarez, who is not related to the children. The relationship between the suspects and the children could not be immediately verified by our source.
Both Dominguez, 35, and 36-year-old Minjarez, remain held on a $2 million bond, Pueblo County Jail records show.
Their arrests came as investigators sought the public’s help in recent weeks.
Stonix News reported that on Jan. 20, Pueblo police responded to a report of suspicious activity, and they said officers found a metal container in a storage unit with hardened concrete. Two days later, police determined a girl was inside of the container.
Around that time, police said, they began looking into Dominguez and Minjarez as persons of interest, although they did not initially name the pair in a previous news release.
During interviews with police last month, the possibility of the children being in Phoenix was mentioned.
But investigators, according to the police, followed up on that potential lead with no success.
Meanwhile, a car belonging to Minjarez was found in a scrap yard. A search of the car’s trunk on Feb. 6 resulted in the discovery of a boy inside of a suitcase, police said.
On Thursday, DNA tests confirmed the girl in the storage unit was Yesenia and the boy in the suitcase was Jesus, and arrest warrants were issued for Dominguez and Minjarez.
Aside from the murder charge, Dominguez also faces a charge of theft of government benefits.
Pueblo police said no missing person’s report had been filed regarding the children, and they were only alerted to the kids’ disappearance when the investigation began last month.
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