Jurors began deliberating the guilt or innocence of Rosendo Valenzuela today in the May 2007 beating death of Mamie Gong, 64.
Gong died shortly after hiring Armando Estrada and Valenzuela (his brother-in-law) to clear portions of the five acres she owned in Three Points.
Estrada is now serving a life sentence in the case. During his trial, prosecutor Mark Diebolt told jurors the pair killed Gong on May 31, 2007, grabbed her automated-teller-machine card and stole her truck. They left her body inside a dilapidated trailer in Three Points.
Her badly decomposed body was found 19 days later.
Investigators linked Estrada to the slaying after finding the last call made from Gong's cell phone was by Estrada to his wife, Diebolt said.
Estrada told investigators it was Valenzuela who killed Gong with large bricks and a wooden object.
People are also reading…
Estrada admitted to carrying Gong into the trailer and leaving her, despite the fact that she was still alive, Diebolt said. He also said he was the one who used Gong's ATM card.
Valenzuela is claiming the opposite is true -- that he helped carry a still-alive Gong into the trailer and it was Estrada that beat her to death.
The Pima County Attorney's Office originally had planned to seek the death penalty against both defendants. Prosecutors later dropped those plans because both are borderline mentally retarded, and the law forbids their execution.
