Woman Charged with Murdering Children, 3 and 5, Hiding Bodies for More Than 5 Years: Police

Corena Minjarez, 37, is facing two counts of first-degree murder of a victim under 12 years old by a person in a position of trust and two counts of abuse of a corpse for the 2018 killings of her children, Jesus Dominguez Jr., 5, and Yesenia Dominguez, 3, per court records reviewed by Law&Crime.

The children's father, Jesus Dominguez, had previously accepted a plea deal in exchange for his testimony against his ex, according to The Pueblo Chieftain. As part of the deal, he pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, while all other charges against him were dropped.

The children were Dominguez's with another woman, toward whom Minjarez had purportedly displayed extreme jealousy, the paper reports, citing Pueblo police detectives at an October 2024 preliminary hearing in the case.

According to the investigation into the family, police determined that they were evicted from their home in March 2018 and the children were homeless with Minjarez and Dominguez, living out of their car. At some point in 2019, the family moved into an apartment, but by that point, both children were no longer with them.

Detectives said in court that Jesus told them his relationship with Minjarez had grown more contentious, alleging that she would take out her frustrations on his children.

Members of Minjarez's family, who police said lived with them at the time of the deaths, said she was the primary disciplinarian for the children. They also expressed concern at the severity of that discipline, per detectives.

Her sister shared one alleged incident where she says Minjarez locked Yesenia in a room until she finished eating a carrot, with the sister saying that she didn't think the young girl understood what was expected of her.

Minjarez's teenage son asserted that he confronted his mother about the excessive physical discipline she allegedly gave Jesus Jr., telling police he believed she was taking her relationship frustrations out on Dominguez's children -- particularly his daughter.

The children were last seen alive in 2018, according to the police investigation, with the body of one of them not discovered until January 20, 2024, when Minjarez's mother grew suspicious, calling police just hours before Minjarez and Dominguez were set to be evicted from their storage unit. CBS affiliate WCSC notes that police stated no missing person's report was ever filed for either child.

On the phone with police, per the Chieftain, the woman told police she had a bad feeling about a trash can full of "hardened concrete" in the unit. When police responded to the call and subsequently cut into the concrete, they found the decomposed remains of Yesenia wrapped in layers of trash bags.

Minjarez's mother was also the key to finding the second body, as she recalled to police an instance in the summer of 2018 when she detected a "foul smell" coming from her daughter's vehicle. She asked jokingly at the time if something had died in it, according to testimony at the hearing.

The remains of Jesus Jr. were found in a suitcase in the trunk of the suspect's vehicle, which was tracked to a scrapyard one month after the discovery of the first body. Autopsies on both children determined their causes of death as "homicidal violence," but detectives noted the remains were too decomposed to determine a more exact cause or date of death.

According to the family, Dominguez offered changing stories about what had happened to the two children. But on two separate occasions, Minjarez allegedly confessed to killing them.

She purportedly told a friend that both children had died in 2018 and that she'd hidden their bodies, per Law&Crime. That friend later told investigators that Minjarez claimed she and Dominguez were doing drugs one night and later found Yesenia "unconscious behind the back seat," according to detectives' testimony. She allegedly said that Jesus Jr. died "the exact same way" six months later.

Detectives investigating these stories with the vehicle determined that this story was extremely unlikely, due to how the back seat of the vehicle worked. More likely, if a child got stuck, they would still be able to use their arms or at least make noise to get attention, per The Chieftain.

A Facebook post from Minjarez to her son dated February 1, 2024, as read in court, saw the mother purportedly pleading for her son to believe her story about how the two young children had died, insisting it was an accident and tell him that she loved him and his sisters.

Dominguez's sentencing is set for September 12, while the Chieftain reports he is on the witness list testify in the trial against Minjarez, going on now.