Former employees of man charged with homicide in burned body case testify he roped them into hiding evidence

GREEN BAY – Multiple former employees of Pedro Santiago-Marquez took the stand Tuesday during the first full day of testimony in his trial and said he got them involved in the aftermath of a fatal shooting of another employee.

Santiago-Marquez, of Green Bay, is charged with first-degree intentional homicide and mutilating a corpse, both as party to a crime. He is accused of fatally shooting Jason Mendez-Ramos, a 36-year-old Ashwaubenon man, and ordering the burning of the body in September 2021. His trial started Monday in Brown County Circuit Court.

Santiago-Marquez owned Empire Painting, on East Mason Street, where prosecutors say the shooting took place. Mendez-Ramos worked as a painter there, as did four of the 11 prosecution witnesses to testify Tuesday.

Investigators say Santiago-Marquez owed Mendez-Ramos money related to drug trafficking, but Brown County Circuit Court Reserve Judge William Atkinson has made decisions limiting how much of this information can be brought up during the trial.

All former Empire Painting workers who testified said Santiago-Marquez would not always pay his employees for their jobs. Multiple workers had quit over money issues.

One of the former workers to testify Tuesday, Jeisaac Rodriguez-Garcia, is currently in custody facing a charge of mutilating a corpse, as party to a crime, for his role in the incident. He is accused of dumping the body and setting it on fire with gasoline.

Outside the presence of the jury, Rodriguez-Garcia acknowledged his testimony could potentially implicate him, but chose to testify anyway.

Rodriguez-Garcia said the weekend before Mendez-Ramos was killed, he was on vacation with family in the Wisconsin Dells. Throughout the weekend, he received multiple phone calls from Santiago-Marquez regarding work.

Rodriguez-Garcia and his family returned from the Dells on Monday, Sept. 27, 2021, the day Mendez-Ramos went missing. That day, Rodriguez-Garcia said Santiago-Marquez called him twice — once while he was still at the Dells, and again after he returned home to Green Bay.

"Something was kind of urgent. He needed a favor with urgency," Rodriguez-Garcia testified in court through a Spanish-to-English translator.

Over the phone, Santiago-Marquez asked Rodriguez-Garcia to pick up a work van, dispose of "garbage" in the backseat, then clean the van and park it in Rodriguez-Garcia's garage. Santiago-Marquez said he would pay for the favor, Rodriguez-Garcia said.

"He needed me to go get the van, and the garbage which was inside the van he wanted me to set on fire," Rodriguez-Garcia testified.

Rodriguez-Garcia said he went to Santiago-Marquez's house, where Santiago-Marquez gave him a gallon of gasoline and keys to the van. Rodriguez-Garcia then returned to his home, had his girlfriend drive him to Santiago-Marquez's paint shop on East Mason Street, and he took the van. Rodriguez-Garcia said he then stopped at home again to change clothes, because he was still dressed from vacation, and then drove to UW-Green Bay, where he found a spot on the northwest corner of Cofrin Memorial Arboretum he believed was secluded enough to set a fire without drawing attention.

Rodriguez-Garcia testified that he did not know what the "garbage" in the back of the van was. He said there were black plastic bags covered with a blue tarp, about five to six feet long. He said it was heavy, and he struggled to move it out of the van.

When he did get it out of the van, Rodriguez-Garcia poured gasoline on the tarp, and set it on fire with a piece of paper. In total, he said he was at the site of the fire he started for "minutes."

In the early morning hours of Sept. 28, Mendez-Ramos' body was discovered after firefighters were dispatched to put out a grass fire and discovered the body.

Rodriguez-Garcia said that about a day later, he asked Santiago-Marquez about what happened. When they were alone, Santiago-Marquez said he and Mendez-Ramos got into an argument about Mendez-Ramos "doing business under the table" and "cutting him out," Rodriguez-Garcia testified. When Mendez-Ramos met Santiago-Marquez at the shop, there was a physical altercation and Santiago-Marquez shot Mendez-Ramos twice, he said.

During cross-examination, defense attorney Heather Lynn Richmond pointed out that Rodriguez-Garcia initially lied to police officers and did not tell them that Santiago-Marquez admitted to shooting Mendez-Ramos until his third interview. Rodriguez-Garcia said he wanted to wait to disclose everything to investigators once he had an attorney.

Israel Ortega, who also previously worked as a painter for Santiago-Marquez, testified that he was asked to do tasks for Santiago-Marquez after Mendez-Ramos' disappearance as well.

Ortega said he was at Santiago-Marquez's shop on Sept. 27 and saw Mendez-Ramos there. He said he tried to persuade Mendez-Ramos to leave, because Santiago-Marquez had previously told Ortega he was going to "start something" with Mendez-Ramos.

"I told Pedro (Santiago-Marquez), don't do anything stupid, you know, think about your future, think about your kids," Ortega testified.

Ortega said he left the shop while Mendez-Ramos was still there, and went to work at a job site at a home on Pine Street. He later returned to the shop around 2 p.m.

Inside the shop, Ortega met with Alex Burgos-Mojica, who worked for Santiago-Marquez. Burgos-Mojica said something about Santiago-Marquez "setting him up" and handed Ortega a small bag of items to throw away, Ortega testified.

The bag included a cellphone, watch and shell casings. Ortega said he threw away all the items except three shell casings, which he sealed in concrete at the work site on Pine Street.

Burgos-Mojica is charged with harboring or aiding a felon in connection with the incident.

That same day, Santiago-Marquez also asked Ortega to move Mendez-Ramos' car from the shop's parking lot. Ortega said he got his cousin to move the car.

Richmond again pointed out on cross-examination that Ortega changed his story and withheld information from police on multiple occasions.

A third former employee of Empire Painting, Sergio Valentin, testified that Santiago-Marquez asked him to pick up a van parked at a house he had never previously been to, which prosecutors said was Rodriguez-Garcia's residence, and take it to a car dealer on the west side of Green Bay. As soon as he got in the van to drive to the dealer, police pulled him over, Valentin said. Santiago-Marquez, who was driving in a vehicle directly in front of Valentin, continued driving.

Valentin said he called Santiago-Marquez to ask about the vehicle's insurance information and to help with speaking to police, because Valentin does not speak English. Santiago-Marquez did not return to the site of the traffic stop, and police gave Valentin a citation for an expired registration sticker and took the van, leaving Valentin without a vehicle.

Valentin said he paid the ticket and was never repaid by Santiago-Marquez.

Other witnesses who testified Tuesday included analysts with the Wisconsin State Crime Laboratory and Mendez-Ramos' girlfriend, Gabriela Garcia. Garcia testified that the last time she spoke to Mendez-Garcia was over Facetime while he was in Green Bay on his way to Santiago-Marquez's shop.

RELATED:Trial set to begin Monday for Green Bay man accused of killing man to whom he owed $80,000 for drugs

Contact Kelli Arseneau at (920) 213-3721 or karseneau@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter at @ArseneauKelli.

This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: Day 2 in trial for man charged with homicide after burned body found