Left: Aurelia Choc Cac, middle, Niurka Zuleta Choc, top, and Anthony Choc, bottom (FBI). Hector Gamaliel Argueta-Guerra (Mobile County Sheriff”s Office).
Authorities in Alabama discovered the bodies of a missing mom and her two children murdered with a sharp-edged weapon and buried in the woods wrapped in plastic and bedding, a local sheriff said.
Hector Gamaliel Argueta-Guerra, 31, has been in the Mobile County Jail since February on kidnapping charges. On Thursday, prosecutors added three counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of Aurelia Choc Cac, 40, Niurka Zuleta Choc, 17, and 2-year-old Anthony Garcia Choc.
The Choc family was last seen around 3 p.m. on Jan. 30 at their home in the 9000 block of Ben Hamilton Road in Theodore, which is some 15 miles southwest of Mobile. They were reported missing the next day after cops found evidence of a struggle in the home including significant amounts of blood. Authorities discovered the victims’ bodies at a property associated with Argueta-Guerra on Wednesday, Mobile County Sheriff Paul Burch told reporters during a press conference.
Prosecutors said the state plans to seek the death penalty.
“He’s an evil person who will face his judgment soon,” Burch said.
The sheriff said cops are still trying to figure out why Argueta-Guerra allegedly killed his victims.
“What motive would there be for killing a 2-year-old?” he said. “We don’t know.”
Local NBC affiliate WPMI obtained an arrest affidavit that said the victims were killed with a sharp-edged weapon. The 2-year-old boy suffered “sharp force trauma” to the head area while his mother was apparently stabbed in the chest and back, the affidavit reportedly stated. They were then taken to a wooded area in nearby Baldwin County and buried in a “clandestine grave.”
Authorities are still working to positively identify the bodies but they believe they are the Choc family based on some of the jewelry they were wearing.
The defendant is allegedly a member of the Sureños gang, a California-based group associated with the Mexican mafia. Argueta-Guerra was slated for deportation in 2021 but was released for unknown reasons, officials said.
“Hector, you are a sick person to do what you did to this family and we know if convicted, you will never see the outside world again,” the sheriff’s office wrote on Facebook.
