UPDATE | Nov. 4 —Ricardo Perales-Cordero was found guilty by a jury on Nov. 4, 2024. He was sentenced to life in prison.
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ADAMS COUNTY, Colo. — The trial for a defendant accused of murdering a woman in Brighton and fleeing to Trinidad began on Friday.
Ricardo Perales-Cordero, now 33, pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder after deliberation on Aug. 3, 2023.
The charges stem from Oct. 19, 2022, when the Brighton Police Department said its officers responded to a hotel along the 15100 block of Brighton Road and found a deceased 28-year-old woman in one of the rooms. Witnesses told police they saw a Hispanic man fleeing in a black lifted pickup truck with Texas license plates, Brighton police said.
Around 3:15 p.m. that day, officers with the Trinidad Police Department located Perales-Cordero and took him into custody, police said. He had traveled about three hours south of the crime scene.
He was transported back to Brighton and booked into the Adams County Jail on charges of first-degree murder, domestic violence and tampering with evidence.
After pleading not guilty to the charges in the summer of 2023, his case was set for trial. That started on Friday morning and is slated to continue through Nov. 1.
This story will be updated as the trial progresses.
