MANHATTAN, Kan. – Jurors took in several hours of a video interrogation as the capital murder trial of Luis Aguirre continued inside Riley County District Court on Tuesday.
Aguirre, 24, is being charged for premeditating the 2009 murders of his 18-year old ex-girlfriend Tanya Maldonado and the couple’s 13-month old son Juan.
The footage was filmed in an interrogation room inside the Austin (Texas) Police Department on Oct. 30, 2009; five days after the bodies of Tanya and Juan were discovered in Ogden, Kan.
During the interrogation, Riley County Police Detective Ryan Runyan asked Aguirre several questions concerning the whereabouts of Tanya and Juan, his relationship with two, and his activity over the past year.
A number of the statements made by Aguirre in the video contradicted the testimonies given by Tanya’s aunt Sylvia Ortiz and Aguirre’s ex-girlfriend Dulcé Mendez.
Ortiz described to the court her relationship with her niece. Tanya lived with Ortiz in a Chicago suburb during summer of 2007, the point in time where she (Tanya) became involved sexually with Aguirre.
In the video, Aguirre told Runyan that he was “unsure” whether he was truly Juan’s father. Ortiz testified that Aguirre confirmed in a 2007 phone conversation that he was in fact the father of Tanya’s unborn child. Paternity test results that were revealed to the court on Monday showed that there is a 99.998 percent chance that Aguirre is Juan’s father.
Mendez, who entered into an intimate relationship with Aguirre after Tanya had given birth to Juan, told jurors that Aguirre had never mentioned having a son.
The trial resumes Wednesday at 9 a.m.
