Top 10: No. 2: Remains of Rita Gutierrez-Garcia found

Dana Cadey, Daily Times-Call, Longmont, Colo.
·2 min read

Dec. 30—Editor's note: Continuing through Saturday, the Times-Call is counting down the top 10 stories of he year, as selected by the newspaper's editors.

The remains of Rita Gutierrez-Garcia were discovered east of Longmont this year, finally putting to rest a four-year search.

On May 19, a release from the Boulder County District Attorney's Office revealed that information provided to investigators led them to search an area in Weld County, where human remains were recovered April 28. DNA testing confirmed the remains belonged to Gutierrez-Garcia.

The release also announced Juan Jose Figueroa Jr., the man charged in Gutierrez-Garcia's disappearance and murder, would enter a guilty plea and be sentenced June 3.

Gutierrez-Garcia was 34 when she went missing on March 18, 2018. She was celebrating St. Patrick's Day at bars in downtown Longmont and was last seen in a city parking lot behind 3's Bar on Main Street.

Figueroa, 33, was named as the primary suspect early on in the case. DNA evidence confirmed Gutierrez-Garcia was in Figueroa's pickup truck; cellphone data from the day she went missing also showed that her phone traveled the same path as the pickup until it was turned off just after Longmont police dispatch received a hang-up 911 call at 3:07 a.m.

Figueroa was indicted by a grand jury in 2021 on counts of first-degree murder after deliberation, felony murder and second-degree kidnapping. Without a body, however, prosecutors were only able to present the case as a "no body homicide."

In June of this year, Figueroa pleaded guilty in Boulder District Court to second-degree murder and first-degree kidnapping. As part of the plea deal, he admitted to knocking Gutierrez-Garcia unconscious, dragging her to his truck and strangling her. Figueroa led investigators to the area where Gutierrez-Garcia's remains were found in April.

Figueroa is currently serving a 93-year to life sentence in Colorado Territorial Correctional Facility in Cañon City on an unrelated sex assault conviction. He will serve 48 years on the second-degree murder count consecutive to the sex assault sentence.