Facebook messages about being haunted helped convict Norman woman of murder
NORMAN — In 2018, Desiree Sanchez wrote her husband on Facebook that his dead sister was haunting them because she knows "what I did."
That Facebook message was among the key evidence against the Norman woman in a murder trial that ended Wednesday in Cleveland County District Court.
A jury found her guilty of first-degree murder and unlawful removal of a dead body.
Desiree Sanchez, 28, and her husband, Octavio Juan Sanchez, 36, were charged in 2022. The husband's murder trial is set to begin in January.
They were accused of killing his sister, Margarita Juanita "Maggie" Sandoval, in 2018, shortly after she moved in with them. They also were accused of hiding her body for years and spending her monthly Social Security disability payments on themselves.
Police found the decomposing body in a wrapped plastic container in the basement of a Norman residence on May 13, 2021, after getting a tip.
Prosecutors alleged in the charge the victim was killed between Feb. 17 and April 18, 2018.
On Facebook in May 2018, Octavio Sanchez wrote: "I'm being haunted by this trash.
"You know I don't believe in paranormal things but ... she is trying to attack me and not just in my sleep. ... I got up to get phone to call you and I couldn't move. I was sitting on bed and she was holding me down."
"Trust me," Desiree Sanchez responded. "She does it to me every night. ... You have to ask for protection from evil."
The husband then wrote: "I couldn't move and looking probably crazy punching the thin air."
She knows "what I did," the wife responded, adding "im not there and shes taking it out on you."
Her defense at trial was that her husband was to blame. She did not testify.
Desiree Sanchez gets life sentence for murder of relative
Jurors chose a life sentence and a $10,000 fine as punishment for murder. She will not be eligible for parole under current law until she is in her 60s.
Jurors chose five years and a $5,000 fine as punishment for hiding the body.
The victim had intellectual disabilities and was unable to function without constant care, prosecutors said. She would have been 18 or 19 at the time of her death.
Police believe the couple kept the wrapped body at their apartment and then at their house in Norman before it was moved to a friend's basement.
“Maggie deserved better than how this defendant treated her and I’m thankful for everyone who did not give up on her," District Attorney Greg Mashburn said after the verdict.
More: Oklahoma murder suspects believed victim was haunting them, police say
The friend, Miguel Munoz, confessed he helped the couple put the body in his basement in June 2019, a Norman police detective wrote in a court affidavit.
He said "Octavio stated he and his wife, Desiree, killed a child molester," according to the court affidavit. He said the husband told him "Desiree started it and I had to finish it."
Munoz, 45, is charged with accessory to first-degree murder.
Since his arrest, Octavio Sanchez has made written statements about the case. In one filed in federal court, he wrote that he hit his sister twice in the face to get her away from a child.
"I didn't think I hit her hard enough to kill her but she hit her head on the TV stand," he wrote. "Desiree didn't help or know anything."
Desiree Sanchez was sentenced in June to three years in federal prison for collecting the victim's Social Security disability checks and pandemic stimulus checks. Octavio Sanchez was sentenced to four years in prison.
They were ordered to pay $34,112 in restitution.
Octavio Sanchez also was sentenced last year to 10 years in federal prison over a gun found in 2021 in a trash can at his house during the murder investigation. He was prohibited from having a gun because of a felony conviction in Arkansas.
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Norman woman found guilty of murdering relative, hiding body for years
