Jose Gutierrez-Rosales told officials that his coworkers mocked him over his estranged wife’s alleged affair with a man he worked with. They pretended to call her. They made fun of him and bullied him. He’d had enough of it.
“They provoked all of this,” Gutierrez-Rosales told sheriff’s investigators.
Gutierrez-Rosales stated on April 18 that he and Hector Javier Castaneda Vasquez — the man he suspected of sleeping with his wife — were working near irrigation pipes on Di Giorgio Road east of Lamont. According to court documents, that is when the “accident” occurred, as he told investigators.
“We were there picking up the pipes,” he was reported as saying. “I ate about two tacos and felt strange in my body, and then I grabbed the pipe and just started going at him.”
According to officials, he claimed to have spoken to Vasquez while beating him to death.
“This is for getting involved with my family,” Gutierrez-Rosales reportedly said he told Vasquez as he hit him.
Gutierrez-Rosales, 49, is being held without bail on first-degree murder charges. He is scheduled to appear in court again on Tuesday.
Vasquez, 56, was pronounced dead at the scene. According to the documents, he suffered multiple skull fractures and cuts to his face and back of his head. Several teeth had been busted out of his mouth.
According to the documents, Gutierrez-Rosales was not actually married. A woman whose name has been withheld told investigators that she and Gutierrez-Rosales had been in a relationship for three months but had broken up several weeks before the murder. He has anger issues, according to her.
Gutierrez-Rosales was apprehended by deputies on April 28. According to officials, other coworkers observed the pummeling and identified him as the perpetrator.
According to court documents, after killing Vasquez, Gutierrez-Rosales drove to Taft, left the vehicle, and began walking to Bakersfield. He begged God for forgiveness and started cutting himself with a box cutter-style knife. He claimed that his mobile phone died and that he buried it near a grapevine near the highway.
He stated he was aware he would be apprehended. Gutierrez-Rosales told detectives that if he really wanted to flee, he would have gone to Mexico.
“I’m going to own up to it like a man,” he said.
