Federal worker lured 21-year-old wife on deadly dinner ‘date,’ feds say. He’s sentenced
A California man accused of luring his wife with the promise of a dinner date kidnapped her and brought her to his mother’s house, where she was strangled to death, federal prosecutors said.
Eddy Reyes, 38, of Covina, east of Los Angeles, was sentenced on Nov. 15 to 40 years in prison in connection with the death of his wife, Claudia Sanchez Reyes, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California.
Reyes pleaded guilty April to one count of kidnapping resulting in death, the release said.
An attorney for Reyes didn’t respond to McClatchy News’ request for comment.
Sanchez Reyes, 21, was last seen alive in May 2016, court documents said. Reyes, who worked as a civilian for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, first met his wife on a visit to her native El Salvador when she was 16, the plea agreement said. They had a son together.
Sanchez Reyes, who then moved to the U.S. with her child, had accused her husband of domestic abuse in the past, obtaining temporary restraining orders against him in 2014 and 2016, according to court documents.
Their relationship turned deadly when Reyes called her at work on May 6 and invited her to dinner, showing up in an SUV that he said was a gift for her, according to the plea agreement.
However, the SUV wasn’t a gift; it was a rental, the document said. And instead of going to dinner, Reyes is accused of driving to his mother’s home.
“Upon their arrival, (Reyes) pulled into the garage to his mother’s residence and closed the garage door,” the document said. That’s when his half-brother, a former gang member in El Salvador identified in the plea agreement as P.O., jumped from the SUV’s cargo area, where he’d been hiding, according to officials.
P.O. punched Sanchez Reyes in the face, making her lip bleed, and then strangled her with a seat belt, the document said. It was part of a plan hatched by the men after Reyes, who suspected his wife was cheating, reached out to his half-brother about killing her, the document said.
The day after her death, Reyes used his wife’s cell phone to pose as her via text to a co-worker, saying she wouldn’t be in, the plea agreement said. Later, P.O. — who has since died — used the phone to pose as Sanchez Reyes in a text to her mother in El Salvador, the plea agreement said. The text said she was leaving Reyes and their son to be with another man.
P.O. also used the phone to text a paralegal for a divorce attorney Sanchez Reyes had been in touch with, saying she no longer needed legal help, the plea agreement said.
Reyes reported his wife missing, but he wouldn’t answer questions until several days later at his lawyer’s office, prosecutors said.
Investigators eventually found a drop of Sanchez Reyes’ blood in the SUV, and a cadaver dog indicated that a dead body had been inside, prosecutors said.
Reyes, who agreed to help prosecutors locate his wife’s remains as part of his plea agreement, has been behind bars since his arrest in 2021.
U.S. District Court Judge Josephine L. Staton called the crime “heinous” and “a product of pure evil” during the sentencing hearing.
“U.S. Customs and Border Protection does not tolerate misconduct, on or off duty,” Todd Siegel, special agent in charge of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Office of Professional Responsibility, Los Angeles Field Office, said in the news release. “(The agency’s) efforts in this case is a testament to CBP’s commitment to preserving the honor of its overwhelmingly professional workforce, and its core values of vigilance, integrity, and service to our country.”
This story was originally published November 19, 2024 at 10:53 AM with the headline "Federal worker lured 21-year-old wife on deadly dinner ‘date,’ feds say. He’s sentenced."
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