A man accused of killing his pregnant girlfriend and stuffing her body into a suitcase before dumping it on an abandoned Chippewa County farm entered not guilty pleas on related charges Wednesday in Chippewa County Court.
Jose Dominguez-Garcia, a 26-year-old from Reedsburg, was charged in December 2021 with first-degree intentional homicide, first-degree intentional homicide of an unborn child and hiding a corpse after the body of 25-year-old Rosaly Cindy Chavarria Rodriguez was found in a suitcase on Oct. 14, 2020, on an abandoned farm along Highway T north of Eau Claire.
It took nearly one year for Rodriguez, who was pregnant at the time of her death, to be positively identified by a DNA profile. Medical records show that she was seven weeks, five days pregnant at a doctor’s visit June 18, 2020, and had an estimated due date of Jan. 30, 2021.
She went missing in July 2020, according to the Wisconsin Department of Justice Clearinghouse for Missing and Exploited Children and Adults.
Dominguez-Garcia’s car was observed on surveillance footage July 23, 2020, along 2655 Highway T, where Rodriguez’s body was later discovered.
An arrest warrant was issued Dec. 15, 2021. He was arrested almost two years later on Nov. 23, 2023, in Gladstone, Missouri, near Kansas City.
According to the Gladstone Police Department, automated license plate readers in the city detected a vehicle with stolen plates. Officers found the vehicle in a parking lot and contacted the driver, who had multiple ID cards and gave several different names.
Eventually, they identified the driver as Dominguez-Garcia.
Dominguez-Garcia appeared in court by video from the Chippewa County Jail on Wednesday with a Spanish interpreter.
Dominguez-Garcia is being held in the Chippewa County Jail on a $1 million cash bond. If Dominguez-Garcia can post the cash bond, he cannot possess any dangerous weapons, cannot leave the state of Wisconsin and must comply with pre-trial monitoring.
A motion hearing will be held Oct. 31, and the trial is scheduled to begin March 24, 2025.
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