Yakima County cold case from 1992 may finally have a resolution

[Guest Nicole]

Nearly three decades ago, Samantha Rios took a taxi to her home in Naches Heights after a bus dropped her off in Yakima.

Her husband, Jose Maciel, said she never arrived at their home, where earlier they had argued before she left for The Dalles, Ore., taking his car and cashing a check of his for nearly $1,000.

Rios’ sister would later report that he had threatened to kill his wife if she ever left him. While she was never seen again, Yakima County sheriff’s detectives never had enough evidence to arrest him.

Then last May, a heavy equipment operator spotted a skull as he was moving dirt for a new fruit warehouse in the Gleed area, where Maciel had once worked.

Detectives excavated the area and found much of Rios’ skeleton; a King County anthropologist found evidence that she had been stabbed multiple times.

But despite the discovery, evidence firmly connecting Maciel to his wife’s death remained elusive. Witnesses who might have confirmed incriminating comments by Maciel had moved or opted not to come forward.

Regardless, Detective Chad Michael gathered enough facts to get a warrant for Maciel’s DNA.

Last week, Maciel agreed to meet with the detective.

He seemed willing to come in, but he called back to ask why he needed to be interviewed again, Michael said.

But two hours before the meeting on Thursday afternoon, Maciel’s minivan drove into an oncoming semitruck on a straight stretch of road in Benton County, where he had been working.

Maciel, 52, died at the scene.

There is no clear evidence of suicide, but Maciel’s sudden death raises questions.

Detectives will never know if he might have confessed to the killing, or if he might have offered a motive.

“There will always be a question mark,” Michael said.

Relatives, meanwhile, must deal with the repercussions of both deaths.

“At the end of the day we are going to bring her home,” Ben Jacobs, brother of Samantha Rios, said in a phone interview from Indiana. “We are not a rich family, we don’t have the means to do it, but we are going to do it.”

Maciel’s family, still reeling from his death last Thursday, learned this week of his suspected role in Rios’ death.

For son Jose Angel Maciel, the news clashed with every impression the 19-year-old ever held of his father.

The younger Maciel said he will remember his father as a generous, honest man, with no signs of a guilty conscience.

“That is nothing I would have expected from my dad in a thousand years,” Maciel said.

Rios’ case was among about a dozen long-term missing-person cases dating back to 1992 that are currently open, according to the sheriff’s office.

As in her case, detectives sometimes believe they know who the suspect is but can’t gain enough evidence for an arrest.

Looking back on the case files, sheriff’s Detective Sgt. Mike Russell said investigators at the time appeared to track down as many leads as they could.

Since then, two detectives assigned to the case have died; others have retired and moved away.

When the skeleton was uncovered, detectives approached the investigation as a new case, trying to track down witnesses and build a complete package of evidence to present to the prosecutor’s office for a potential trial.

For Rios’ family, the word that came Monday brought a combination of relief and frustration.

On the one hand, the family can give her a proper funeral, said Dixie Rosales, her mother. But she said she has some trepidation about actually burying her again.

“I am happy that she is not in that hole anymore,” Rosales said in a phone interview Tuesday. “Even though we are already making arrangements for her funeral, I don’t want to put her back in the dirt.”

But she’s also mad that the man suspected of killing her will not stand trial, and she believes he took his own life rather than risk being arrested and going to prison.

One of six children, Rios had a troubled life, Rosales said. Rios grew up with an abusive father, Rosales said.

Rosales took Rios to the Pacific Northwest to escape abuse, but Rios began abusing drugs.

When Rios and Maciel got married, her mother thought it might help keep her from living on the streets. At the time, she was about 16 or 17.

“I wanted her in a safe environment,” Rosales said. “I thought Jose was safe for her because he, at one time, loved her.”

Rios did not work after her marriage, and they did not have children, Rosales said.

The last time Rosales said she saw her was about a year and a half after the wedding, when Rios had come home after fighting with Maciel. Worried that she was falling back into her old habits, Rosales told her daughter to return home to her husband.

“I definitely wouldn’t (have sent her back) if I knew he could kill her,” Rosales said.

She later went to the orchard where they lived, and Maciel told her that Rios had run off again. He later told her that she had taken her car and went off to do laundry and never came back.

The following Mother’s Day, Rosales said there was a card on her fence post signed with Rios’ name, but she said the handwriting was not her daughter’s.

For the next three years, she and her family checked out rumors that she had been seen, whether it was the Tri-Cities, the Lower Valley or Yakima. They also moved to Wapato.

Then, while she was attending a Bible study at a Jehovah’s Witness meeting, Rosales said a woman she recognized as Maciel’s mistress came up to her and told her that Rios had been killed by Maciel and two others.

Later, acting on a tip from another witness, the family and detectives went to an orchard near Selah armed with shovels, but were denied access to the site because it was private property, Rosales said.

Rosales and her family moved out of the area in 1996.

Even though she’d been told her daughter was dead, Rosales said in the back of her mind she still expected her to show up at the front door.

Detectives believe they came as close as they could to ever arresting a suspect.

“Jose was the only one — the only one — ever mentioned,” Michael said.

Maciel’s son said he will grieve for his father’s death while understanding the pain suffered by Rios’ family as well.

“I just wish they are OK as much as I wish myself to be OK,” he said.

http://www.yakimaherald.com/news/crime_and_courts/yakima-county-cold-case-from-may-finally-have-a-resolution/article_05cad90e-7a4a-11e6-8720-b3e55623a2e3.html