Utah man charged for desecrating Colorado teen’s body

SALT LAKE CITY — (KUTV) A West Valley City man has been charged with several felonies related to a case where a teenager’s body was found in a suitcase in December 2014 and then transported to Grand Junction, Colorado, according to prosecutors.

Eduardo Nasario Delacruz, 31, also known as “Little Syko,” was charged in Third District Court on Thursday with desecrating a human body, a second-degree felony, as well as obstructing justice, a third-degree felony.

The charges stem from a case related to the death of 18-year-old Kelly Myers, whose body was found in a suitcase in Western Colorado. Police stated they believed Myers had died at a hotel in West Valley City where she was staying.

Mesa County Chief Deputy coroner Victor Yahn previously said Myers died of a mixed drug overdose.

On Dec. 28, 2014, Myers’ father reported her missing after he last saw her at his home in Grand Junction Colorado, according to court documents. Myers told her father she was going to a birthday party in Utah. She took a backpack and tote bag with her. She was last seen on Dec. 18 getting into a blue Chevy Cobalt with Washington state plates, court records state.

A day after Myers was last seen she sent her boyfriend a Facebook message stating she was no longer in Grand Junction. Police were able to track the IP address of the computer Myers used to send the message to a Country Inn and Suites in West Valley City.

Records from the hotel show Delacruz rented room 221 from Dec. 18-22, according to court documents.

What started out as a birthday party for Delacruz’s girlfriend turned into an impromptu wedding for Delacruz and his girlfriend, the records state. Another friend of Delacruz’s and Myers were not in attendance at the birthday/wedding party, according to court records.

Later it was learned through witnesses that Delacruz admitted to friends he got married on the day of the crime, so he would have an alibi.

A witness prosecutors interviewed said on Christmas Day of 2015 Delacruz’s friend picked the witness up in Colorado. The witness could smell a “strong, unpleasant odor” while they were in the car. Delcruz’s friend told the witness the smell was Kelly Myers and that she had overdosed in a hotel in Utah, court records state. The witness was then told by the driver of the car that he had to cut her legs in order to fit her body into a suitcase and needed the witnesses help disposing of the body, court records state. When the witness and the driver arrived at Cactus Park in Colorado, the driver, according to court records, pulled the black suitcase from the back of the car and kicked it into a ravine.

RELATED:Teen found stuffed in suitcase died of drug overdose

Police were later able to use cadaver dogs to identify human decomposition in the back of that car the suitcase had been in. Investigators also matched DNA of Myers in the hotel room 221 that Delacruz had rented out, court records state.

A medical examiner determined that Myers died of a mixed drug intoxication. The report also stated Myers had cut wounds to both of her upper thighs all the way up to the femur. These cuts happened after Myers’ death and she had likely died several weeks prior to the autopsy, the medical examiner concluded.

On Dec. 19, a friend got a text message from Delacruz asking for them to meet up right away. Delacruz took the friend inside the hotel room in West Valley City where they found Myers’ obviously deceased body in the bathtub. Delacruz and two other friends in the room talked about how they would get Myers’ body out of the hotel room. They talked about cutting the body up and putting it in a duffle bag or suitcase. Delacruz and one of the friends refused to help cut up the body but agreed to purchase supplies to help get rid of the body, according to court records.

Delacruz and a friend left the hotel and bought gloves, masks, a box of plastic sheets, cleaning solution, a suitcase, and an electric saw.

The friend who stayed behind at the hotel feared the electric saw would be too loud and asked them if they could go get a handsaw instead, court records state.

In a Facebook conversation the friend told Delacruz, “the one you got is a very loud one. I know once I start it up it will bring nothing but problems.”

Delacruz told him OK, but later a Facebook message came to him from the friend that stated, “What happened to the saw Cuddi? I’m trying to do the job but you aren’t helping me out.”

Delacruz later provided his friend was a silver hatchback car to transport the body and told him to dump the body between Salt Lake City and Grand Junction, Colorado.

Delacruz told witnesses that he decided to get marred that same day so he would have an alibi, records state.