A 29-year-old man has been accused of what authorities called the “horrific” murders of his girlfriend and their roommate.
Marvin Ortiz-Montecinos was charged on Friday, Sept. 12, with two counts of first-degree murder with deadly weapon enhancements for the deaths of Victoria Aparicio Cruz and Yaneth Gomez-Hernandez.
According to charging documents obtained by PEOPLE, Ortiz-Montecinos allegedly used a fillet knife to stab Cruz, “slicing through her neck, cutting her hands in multiple places as she tried to defend herself, and stabbing her multiple times in the back even after she was unresponsive and dead.”
Prosecutors say that about an hour before the attack, Ortiz-Montecinos “complained about Victoria breaking up with him,” according to the documents.
Gomez-Hernandez, who lived with the couple, was found naked with a towel partially covering her leg. “It appears victim Yaneth Gomez-Hernandez, the defendant’s roommate, was violently and cruelly murdered simply for trying to intervene,” the documents state. She suffered 43 stab wounds.
The documents also note that “both women received neck wounds so large and deep it seems the defendant was trying to slice his victims, not just stab them.”
The King County Sheriff’s Office was called by a neighbor to the Montrose apartments in Burien, Wash., around 9:30 p.m. on Sept. 8. The neighbor said he found Ortiz-Montecinos covered in blood and lying in the grass. He was taken to the hospital after deputies noticed “multiple injuries that looked like stab wounds on the back of his head, his chest, and back.”
At the scene, deputies saw a trail of blood leading to a third-floor apartment. Inside, Cruz and Gomez-Hernandez were found on the bedroom floor “completely soaked in blood.”
Ortiz-Montecinos told detectives at Harborview Medical Center that an “unknown Black male” attacked the women while he was asleep and stabbed him. He claimed this person then fled through the front door.
According to the documents, detectives found “several inconsistencies” in his story. There was no sign of forced entry, and only “one set of footprints led from the bedroom to the front door.” Blood on the inside of the deadbolt suggested the door was locked from the inside when Ortiz-Montecinos left.
Prosecutors also say Ortiz-Montecinos claimed he fell asleep on the couch around 7 p.m., but he allegedly texted Cruz around 10:25 p.m., which suggests he was awake and not with Victoria at the time. He last texted her about 61 minutes before the neighbor called 911.
Deputies found a curved, 7-inch single-sided fillet knife on the apartment grounds.
Ortiz-Montecinos is being held on $10 million bail. He is scheduled to be arraigned on Thursday, Sept. 18.
