Jeremy Sagastegui was executed by the State of Washington for a triple murder
According to court documents Jeremy Sagastegui was suppose to be taking care of three year old Keivan Sarbacher however he would sexually assault, beat and drown the little boy. Jeremy would then fatally shoot the boy’s mother Melissa Sarbacher, 21, and her friend Lisa Vera-Acevado, 26, when they arrived home.
Jeremy Sagastegui would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Jeremy Sagastegui would be executed by lethal injection on October 13 1998
Jeremy Sagastegui Case
Sometime between the evening hours of November 18 and the early morning hours of November 19, 1995, at a residence in Finley, Washington, Jeremy Sagastegui sexually abused, beat, stabbed and then drowned Kievan Sarbacher (Kievan), a three-year-old boy who was in his care. Sagastegui then waited for Kievan’s mother, Melissa Sarbacher (Sarbacher), to return home. When she did so, he shot her and her friend, Lisa Vera-Acevado, who had accompanied Sarbacher home.
Later, on November 19, 1995, deputies of the Benton County Sheriff’s Office were dispatched to Sarbacher’s residence after receiving a call from a neighbor. There, they found the body of Vera-Acevado lying outside the home. The deputies then went inside the residence and discovered Sarbacher’s body on the floor of the living room. In one bedroom, they found two-year-old Tiana Sarbacher standing in a crib. She was unharmed. In the master bedroom, they found the lifeless body of three-year-old Kievan lying on a bed. The child, who was wrapped in a green terry cloth towel, appeared slightly bluish in color and was cold to the touch.
The deputies observed a large bloody butcher knife next to Kievan’s body. They also found a jar of petroleum jelly on the bed. A later examination of Kievan’s corpse with a forensic light disclosed three small droplets on the inner thigh. An examination of the substance in the jar with the forensic light revealed that it luminesced in the same manner as did the droplets discovered on the child’s body. Within a bathtub in a bathroom located near the master bedroom, the investigating deputies found water and toys. They also found bloodstains on the side of the tub.
Autopsies were performed on the bodies of all three victims by Dr. Terri Haddix, a forensic pathologist. Haddix found that Kievan had been stabbed in the right side of his abdomen. She also observed bruising about the child’s head and three lacerations in Kievan’s anus, all of which had produced bleeding. She opined that penetration of “something” into the anal canal would have produced these lacerations. Report of Proceedings (RP) at 1041. She believed that the wounds to Kievan’s anus were of recent origin based on the fact that there was no evidence of healing or inflammation. Haddix concluded that Kievan’s death was not caused by any of the aforementioned injuries but, rather, by drowning. This conclusion was based on her discovery of the presence of foam within Kievan’s nose and upper airways and her finding that the child’s lungs were expanded in appearance.
Haddix concluded that Vera-Acevado’s death was caused by a single gunshot wound to the middle of her chest. Sarbacher, on the other hand, had been shot twice. One bullet penetrated her chest and the other entered through her neck and passed through her brain. Haddix could not determine which wound was suffered first, but she opined that either would have been fatal.
Detectives from the Benton County Sheriff’s Office also conducted several interviews on November 19. One interview was with Sarbacher’s friend, Korina Barnett, who told the detectives that she had seen Sarbacher and Vera-Acevado twice during the evening of November 18. Sarbacher told Barnett at one point during the evening that Sagastegui was baby-sitting Sarbacher’s two children. Karen Southham, Vera-Acevado’s cousin, informed the detectives that she knew they were looking for Sarbacher’s black Ranger truck.
The following day, November 20, Southham observed the Ranger truck in the parking lot of the apartment building where Jeremy Sagastegui was living. She immediately reported this observation to the Benton County Sheriff’s Office. CP at 425. That same day, Scott Peterson, Sagastegui’s roommate, told Sheriff’s detectives that Sagastegui had called him on the afternoon of November 18 and asked if he “could bring Melissa’s kids over.” CP at 425. Peterson said that he declined Jeremy Sagastegui’s request. Peterson indicated that he let Sagastegui into their apartment early on the morning of November 19 and that Sagastegui could still be found at that location.
Benton County detectives immediately obtained a warrant authorizing a search of Sagastegui’s apartment. Jeremy Sagastegui was at his apartment when the detectives arrived to execute the warrant. Upon confronting Jeremy Sagastegui, the detectives advised him of his Miranda rights.1 Jeremy Sagastegui indicated that he would waive his rights and would talk to the detectives. He proceeded to tell the detectives that there was a set of keys in his closet and “something under the couch ․ that [they] would be interested in.” RP (2/6/96) at 1002.
In response to Jeremy Sagastegui’s remark, the detectives lifted the couch and found beneath it a “.30/.30” rifle with a brown leather strap. It was later identified as belonging to Wes Boulware, Sarbacher’s friend, who indicated that he normally kept the rifle at the residence where Sarbacher was killed. The detectives also retrieved a set of keys from Sagastegui’s closet and determined that they fit into the door lock and ignition of the black Ranger truck.
Bullets and bullet fragments recovered from Sarbacher’s home were sent to the Washington Crime Laboratory along with the rifle found at Jeremy Sagastegui’s apartment. After conducting tests on these items, experts at the laboratory concluded that the bullets discovered at the scene had been fired from the rifle. Tests also revealed that Jeremy Sagastegui’s fingerprints were on the rifle. In addition, the crime laboratory concluded that Jeremy Sagastegui’s fingerprints matched fingerprints found on a lampshade and beer can which were found at Sarbacher’s residence as well as those found on a bathroom wall within the residence.
Jeremy Sagastegui was then taken to Benton County Sheriff’s Office. After readvising him of his constitutional rights, Detectives Terry Carlson and Phil Carpenter asked Sagastegui if he had any information about the homicides in Finley. Jeremy Sagastegui replied that he had killed all three persons whose bodies had been found. He then gave a detailed, tape-recorded statement recounting the events that had taken place on the night of November 18 and the morning of November 19.
Sagastegui told the detectives that he had agreed to baby-sit for Sarbacher on Saturday evening, November 18th at her home in Finley. He said, that before Sarbacher left her home that night, he helped her put her two children, Tiana and Kievan, to bed. According to Sagastegui, Kievan woke up later that evening, “screaming and yelling” for his mother. CP at 159. Sagastegui said that he told Kievan to “shut up” and when he did not do so, he “grabbed him and shoved his head into a pillow.” CP at 159.
Sagastegui was unclear about the sequence of events that occurred thereafter. Although he said that he stabbed Kievan and raped him anally, using a jar of Vaseline in the process, he did not recall which act he committed first. Sagastegui went on to say that after stabbing Kievan, he put the child into the bathtub to “make sure he was dead,” and then wrapped Kievan in a towel “so his guts wouldn’t spill out all over the place” and threw him onto the bed. CP at 163.
Sagastegui told the detectives that he then got a rifle from a bedroom and checked to see if it was loaded. While waiting for Sarbacher to come home, he became angry because she knew he was “nuts already and she asked [him] to babysit these kids.” CP at 164. He admitted that his plan was to shoot Sarbacher when she walked through the door. CP at 164. Sagastegui said that when Sarbacher entered the residence he pointed the rifle at her. He described her reaction, saying, “she’s asking me what I’m doing with that and walks by like she’s. ., you know, like nothing.” CP at 166.
Sagastegui told Carlson and Carpenter that the rifle did not work the first time he tried to shoot Sarbacher with it. This caused him to be “more amazed now than mad” because she did not “like run or something.” CP at 167, 166. He pulled the trigger again and this time it worked, causing Sarbacher to “fall[ ] back.” CP at 167. When Vera-Acevado entered the doorway of Sarbacher’s residence, he shot her too, causing her to fall backward, landing outside of the house. Sagastegui told the detectives that he wished Vera-Acevado had not shown up but that “she was there and she saw me so I shot her.” CP at 167. Sagastegui said that he had to shoot “Melissa [Sarbacher] twice cause she was still alive.” CP at 168. He noted that Sarbacher was screaming and “there was terror in that girl’s eyes,” but he thought the terror was more from her fear of “what happened to her kids” and that “you [had] to give her credit for that.” CP at 168.
Sagastegui said that after he shot Sarbacher, he got up out of his chair and asked her “how it felt” and saw that she was already dead. CP at 169. He then went outside and asked Vera-Acevado the same question and saw that “all she was doing was gurgling.” CP at 169. He then told her to “hurry up and die or something.” CP at 169. Sagastegui told the detectives that he then took the rifle, got into the Sarbacher’s black Ranger truck and drove to his home. Upon arriving home, he hid the rifle under the couch and then went to bed.
The detectives questioned Sagastegui about why he committed these crimes. Sagastegui responded that Sarbacher was “the worst mother in the world.” CP at 170. He said that Kievan had been showing signs of being molested and he was “going to grow up to be a molester ․ and he was a bad kid anyway.” CP at 171. Sagastegui told the detectives that the child “didn’t deserve to die but ․ he had no supervision ․ [and] was probably going to grow up to be a murderer.” CP at 171. Sagastegui went on to state that Vera-Acevado’s death was a mistake. He indicated that the day following the murders, he did not realize what he had done until he “saw it on the news,” maybe because “you want to black out things that are you know are bad.” CP at 172.
Sagastegui acknowledged that it “was kind of a thrill” to watch Sarbacher die, but that killing “the baby was sick.” CP at 176, 177. When asked about molesting Kievan, Sagastegui said,
No, in fact I was[n’t] even sexually aroused. I just started ․ beating on the kid. I wanted to snap his neck and I kept twisting it and twisting it and he ․ throwing him around ․ and I’m not even sexually arous[ed]. Then I figured ․ maybe I was getting off to this so I tried messing around with him and it wouldn’t work ․ so. .eventually it did, you know, but. .I don’t think, you know, I was out to molest the kid in the first place. I think, you know, it was just.. I don’t even know what it was but it was sick. I mean it was a different feeling than what I got from the mother. But the mother. .I actually smiled and [ ] I think I almost got off on it.
CP at 177. Sagastegui added that “it felt ․ good” and that he started “thinking about going ․ to Food Pavilion with the rifle and just start shooting people” but that he “was a little tired so [he] went to bed.” CP at 177.
Near the end of his interview with Sagastegui, the detectives asked him if there was anything he wanted to add. He answered that he felt sorry for his mother and that he wanted the detectives to “tell her before she [heard] it on the news.” CP at 179.
https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/wa-supreme-court/1007035.html
