Nine people have pleaded guilty for their involvement in the 2021 kidnapping and brutal killing of Georgia woman Rossana Delgado, according to state officials.
Delgado, a mother of two from Venezuela, was kidnapped at a shopping mall and then transported between various locations until she was brought to a remote rural cabin rented under a stolen identity in Gilmer County, Georgia, where she was tortured and dismembered, and authorities later found her burned body.
Police say the 37-year-old was “lured” to the mall in Dekalb County in April 2021 “under the false pretences of a shopping trip.”
“This matter not only spanned across numerous local and state jurisdictions, but also involved the assistance of the federal government in extraditing defendants from Mexico,” Appalachian Judicial Circuit District Attorney B Alison Sosebee said in a statement to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
“It is my hope, even though this matter remains open, that the resolutions and sentences entered at this time will assist the family and loved ones of Rossana Delgado in beginning to obtain closure,” she added.
In February of 2022, a grand jury indicted 14 people for their involvement in the kidnapping.
Three of those wanted in connection with the killing are still at large, according to the paper.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation, which lead the investigation into the abduction, has not specified how all those wanted in connection with the crime are related.
Some of those who pleaded guilty were arrested at various locations in Mexico and extradited back to the US, according to prosecutors.
Delgado, a rideshare driver, told family members she was going on one last trip before heading home the day of her disappearance.
Her husband became concerned when she didn’t return home that night and retraced her steps using her cell phone’s location tracking features.
At one of the locations where she had been, he found a bloody face mask, prompting him to call the police.
Investigators eventually found Delgado’s body at a cabin 120 miles from her last location.
In addition to individual charges, the nine all pleaded guilty to violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, which is used to prosecute organized and gang crime.
