Still Missing CA - Claudia Sanchez Reyes, 22, Santa Ana, 7 May 2016 *husband arrested 2021*

[CastlesBurning]

Claudia Lisseth Sanchez Reyes – The Charley Project

• Missing Since: 05/06/2016
• Missing From: Santa Ana, California
• Classification: Endangered Missing
• Sex: Female
• Race: Hispanic
• Date of Birth: 06/12/1994 (26)
• Age: 21 years old
• Height and Weight: 5'5, 170 pounds
• Distinguishing Characteristics: Hispanic female. Brown hair, brown eyes. Claudia has a raised brown mole in the center of her chin. Her ears are pierced.

Details of Disappearance
Claudia was last seen after leaving her workplace at the El Pollo Loco restaurant in Garden Grove, California on May 6, 2016. She told a coworker that she and her husband, Eddy Reyes, was waiting outside. They had argued on the phone earlier that day, and Eddy had called Claudia to apologize and offered to take her out dancing. She didn't want to go because they were supposed to move to a new apartment in Anaheim, California in a couple of days, but she agreed anyway.

Eddy picked Claudia up in a rented SUV. Instead of going dancing, they went to the home of Eddy's mother, Maria Orellana, and Claudia left their four-year-old son there so Orellana could babysit him. No one other than Eddy claims to have seen her after that. A photo of him is posted with this case summary.

The Reyes's marriage was very troubled and the police responded to the home nine times for domestic disturbances between the couple, but never made any arrests. Claudia alleged her husband had physically, mentally and sexually abused her, and Orellana reportedly hated her and had told her she and Eddy could kill her and take her son. At one point he hired someone to steal her phone and another person to spy on her, because he believed she was being unfaithful.

Claudia had gotten two temporary restraining orders against him, the last one less than two months before her disappearance, and she was working to get a divorce and a third restraining order. In her applications for restraining orders, Claudia submitted photographs of her injuries which she alleged were caused by Eddy's abuse. She also stated he refused to feed their son or change his diapers when she had to go to work, and that he would scream at the child and hit him. She said Eddy had threatened her life, their son's and his own.

On May 7, the day after she was seen at Orellana's home, messages were sent from Claudia's phone to both her mother and an employee of her divorce attorney's office, saying she was going to New York with another man and no longer loved Eddy or their child. Eddy claimed he last saw her that evening when he dropped her off at a McDonald's restaurant in Santa Ana, California so she could go dancing with female friends.

Cellular phone records indicate neither of the couple's phones were in the area of the McDonald's that night. Both the couple's phones traveled to their residence at Bush Terrace Apartments in the 2000 block of Bush Street in Santa Ana on May 7, but Claudia wasn't seen on video surveillance footage at the complex. Shortly thereafter, Eddy removed everything from their apartment and moved to Anaheim as they had planned.

After Claudia went missing, a drop of her blood was found in the SUV Eddy rented, and a cadaver-sniffing dog detected the scent of human remains in the backseat and in the rear storage area. In April 2021, five years after her disappearance, Eddy was arrested and charged with kidnapping resulting in death in her case. If convicted, he could face life in prison without parole, or the death penalty.

Eddy is awaiting trial. Claudia's body has never been found. Foul play is suspected in her case due to the circumstances involved.

Investigating Agency

• Santa Ana Police Department 714-245-8600

Source Information

• California Attorney General's Office
• The Los Angeles Times
• ABC 7
• KTLA 5
• The Orange County Register

 

[kelsie]

Husband of Calif. Woman Who Went Missing in 2016 Charged with Kidnapping That Resulted in Her Death
The affidavit also detailed a history of alleged domestic abuse by Reyes against his wife — including "several threats to kill her" — as well as past temporary restraining orders Sanchez Reyes had obtained against her husband, prosecutors said.

If convicted of the charge of kidnapping resulting in death, Reyes faces potential sentences of the death penalty or life in federal prison without parole.

https://ktla.com/news/local-news/hu...-accused-of-kidnapping-that-led-to-her-death/
“There is probable cause to believe that Reyes kidnapped Claudia by inveigling or decoying Claudia with a promise to take her dancing, and instead taking her to the home of his mother where Claudia was murdered,” the [criminal complaint] read.

“Reyes physically and mentally abused Claudia,” the document states, expanding on one instance where he allegedly paid a stranger $300 to steal his wife’s phone because, he “told a coworker, whom he also asked to steal the phone, that the phone had incriminating evidence about him that could ruin his career.”

According to authorities, he later asked that same stranger to plant cocaine on his wife.

The document noted that Reyes suspected his wife of cheating on him with another man.

In the March 2016 order, Reyes requested her husband go to a yearlong “batterer intervention program” and expressed concern for her family’s safety.

“I am frightened that my husband will hurt our son, me and/or himself. He is very violent and has a quick temper when things don’t go his way,” she wrote.

Eddy Reyes’ mother also had a “very bad relationship” with her daughter-in-law, and at one point even threatened Claudia “that they (presumably referring to Reyes and her) could kill her and take her child from her,” according to the criminal complaint.

 

[kelsie]

USA v. Reyes (8:21-cr-00075), California Central District Court
I'm considering grabbing a free trial to look at these documents, unless someone can find them elsewhere?

EDIT: I found the criminal complaint w/ no paywall!
Eddy Reyes Federal Criminal Complaint | PDF | Federal Bureau Of Investigation | American Government

 

[ifindedout]

BBM. Sentencing Aug. 2.

Ex-Employee of Federal Law Enforcement Agency Pleads Guilty to Kidnapping His Wife, Who was Murdered after the Abduction

A former employee of U.S. Customs and Border Protection pleaded guilty today to a federal kidnapping charge for plotting to abduct and kill his estranged wife, who was strangled to death in 2016.

www.justice.gov

Friday, April 19, 2024

LOS ANGELES – A former federal employee pleaded guilty today to a federal kidnapping charge for plotting to abduct and kill his estranged wife, who was strangled to death in 2016.

Eddy Reyes, 38, of Covina, pleaded guilty to one count of kidnapping resulting in death.

Reyes was a civilian employee of U.S. Customs and Border Protection at the time of his wife’s death and when he was arrested in this case in April 2021. He has been in federal custody since his arrest.

“Mr. Reyes meticulously planned the brutal murder of Claudia Sanchez Reyes and then covered his tracks to evade the scrutiny of law enforcement, a community to which he once belonged,” said Mehtab Syed, the Acting Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office. “The hard work by investigators and prosecutors in this case leading to today’s guilty plea will hopefully bring a measure of justice to Claudia’s family in El Salvador.”

According to his plea agreement, Reyes met the victim, Claudia Sanchez Reyes, in El Salvador in 2014. Reyes eventually married the victim and brought her and their son to the United States. Court documents previously filed in this case allege a history of domestic abuse by Reyes against his wife, who obtained temporary restraining orders against him in 2014 and 2016.

By 2016, Reyes suspected his wife was having an affair and he decided to kill her. Reyes then contacted his estranged half-brother – a one-time gang member and gravedigger in El Salvador identified in court documents as “P.O.,” who is now deceased – about killing the victim.

On May 6, 2016, Reyes telephoned his wife at her job and told her that he wanted to take her to dinner that night and told her not to take an Uber home, which was her usual practice. At approximately 8 p.m. that night, Reyes drove a rented Hyundai Santa Fe and picked her up from work, after previously lying to her that the vehicle was a gift.

Instead of taking his wife out to dinner, Reyes drove to his mother’s house in Orange, pulled into the garage and closed the door. Once the door was closed, P.O. jumped from the SUV’s cargo area into the back seat and grabbed the victim, who was in the front passenger seat. P.O. punched Claudia Reyes in the face, cutting her lip, then took a seat belt and strangled her. She was 21 years old. Reyes helped P.O. push the victim’s dead body from the front passenger seat into the SUV’s cargo area.

Reyes further admitted in court that, the following day, he drove to the Santa Ana apartment he shared with his wife, turned on her telephone he had turned off the night before, and, posing as his wife, used her phone to send a text message to one of her co-workers saying she would not be in to work that day. P.O., also using the victim’s phone, texted a paralegal working for the victim’s divorce lawyer that stated she no longer need the lawyer’s services.

P.O. also used Claudia Reyes’ phone to text her mother and, pretending to be the victim, he wrote that she had met another man, was leaving Reyes and their son, that she was about to disconnect the phone, and wishing her a happy Mother’s Day.

On May 19, 2016, Reyes drove to a parking lot at Los Angeles International Airport and threw in the trash a backpack containing a blanket and rags that P.O. used to wipe down the seatbelt and interior of the SUV where Claudia Reyes was killed.

After Reyes filed a missing person report four days later, police conducted an investigation that revealed co-workers heard Claudia Reyes fighting with her husband on May 6 soon before he picked her up in the rented SUV, according to the affidavit in support of a criminal complaint, which notes detectives later found a drop of Claudia Reyes’ blood in that vehicle and a cadaver dog indicated that a dead body had been in the SUV.

“In committing these acts, [Reyes] admits that he lured Claudia S. into the Hyundai Santa Fe on the night of May 6, 2016, with the promise of taking her to dinner, when in fact the plan was to kill her,” Reyes admitted in this plea agreement.

United States District Judge Josephine L. Staton scheduled an August 2 sentencing hearing, at which time Reyes will face a statutory maximum sentence of life imprisonment. In exchange for his confession, federal prosecutors have agreed to ask Judge Staton to sentence Reyes to no more than 30 years in federal prison.