A Colorado mom of three was found dead in a trash can more than a week after she was reported missing, and the mother of her children is accused of killing her.
Thomas Parales is charged with the death of 37-year-old Annette Marie Valdez, KUSA reports.
Valdez was last seen on November 28, when relatives reported that she had not returned home after Thanksgiving. Her body was found on December 4 near Willowbrook Park in Westminster, a Denver suburb north of the city.
Perales was arrested the next day. His arrest affidavit says that he carried her body, wrapped in blankets in a shopping cart, for days.
He reportedly told officers during an interview that he “blacked out” while arguing with her on Thanksgiving and put his hand over her mouth and got her in a chokehold. Later, he said, he found her unresponsive, panicked, and put her in a trash can to get her body out of her apartment.
“You know I killed my wife and paraded her around?” he reportedly told detectives.
According to court records and police reports, Perales had a history of domestic violence involving Valdez and her children, most recently on October 24 in Northglenn, when Valdez telephoned her mother and said she was “scared” as Perales tried to pry open her door with a knife or kick it in. She watched the events on a Ring camera.
When officers responded, they found the deadbolt “so damaged they believed it was slightly ajar” and the Ring camera and peephole smeared with red paint. They found Perales nearby, carrying a red paint marker.
He was arrested and charged with domestic violence, violation of a protection order, criminal mischief, and obstructing a peace officer. But he was handed probation sentence and released from jail, leaving him clear to murder Valdez two weeks later.
Police records showed “multiple recent domestic-violence related cases” — 67 in the last two years — relating to Perales and Valdez, who family said had been trying to separate from her eventual killer for years.
“We’ve tried so much to get her away from him,” her brother, Adam Larson, said. “Every single time she went right back [saying,] ‘That’s my kids’ father.’”
Valdez’s three daughters are now staying with family, which is raising money for a funeral and to help support the children.
“We miss our mom more than anything … and she got taken from us … by him,” her daughter, Ace Valdez, told KDVR.
“She is a domestic-violence victim …,” Valdez’s sister-in-law, Analisa Larson, told KUSA. “It changes your brain, so she would let him back.”
But still she filed for protection orders — and court kept letting him back out on the streets.
Perales has now been charged with second-degree murder, violation of a protection order/domestic violence, abuse of a corpse and tampering with evidence. He’s been given a $100,000 bond, according to Adams County jail records.
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[Featured image: Thomas Perales/Adams County jail and Annette Marie Valdez/GoFundMe]
