Justice for Jasmine: 10 years after teen’s murder, family fights to keep memory alive

The Daily Republic

Read the original story here. This is the third in a three-part series recounting the 2009 murder of 16-year-old Jasmine Guevara.

Jasmine Guevara loved life so much, she compared it to a carnival.

In 2009, Guevara was a busy, social teenager: she ran track and cross country, played hockey and was in the school marching band; she worked multiple jobs so she could pay for everything from clothes to her braces.

Guevara was also a fighter, and her mother said that began at birth. She and her twin brother, Manny, were born in California after 28 weeks of gestation, and Jasmine weighed 2 pounds, 6 ounces.

Murder indictment was a ‘no-brainer’ in Guevara case

The Daily Republic

Read the original story here. This is the second in a three-part series recounting the 2009 murder of 16-year-old Jasmine Guevara.

Though Alexander Salgado and Maricela Diaz made confessions to police at virtually the same time and were arrested for 16-year-old Jasmine Guevara’s murder on the same day, their cases took different paths from that point forward.

The two were indicted by a grand jury the week following the murder.

“At the point that we presented the case, it was pretty much a no-brainer,” said Tyler Neuharth, a special agent with the Division of Criminal Investigation who worked on the Guevara case. “I don’t think they deliberated more than 10 minutes.”

Guevara killers arrested within 48 hours of 2009 murder

The Daily Republic

Read the original story here. This is the first in a three-part series recounting the 2009 murder of 16-year-old Jasmine Guevara.

On the night of Nov. 10, 2009, a fire was reported in a rural area of western Hanson County.

Almost exactly 48 hours later, two people were in jail, having confessed to stabbing 16-year-old Jasmine Guevara and putting her in the trunk of her car before setting it ablaze with lighter fluid she had purchased earlier that night.