In April of 2021, 36-year-old Carlos Benford, a Black male, and his friend Joshua Wyatt, 29, traveled from Henry County, Georgia, for what they believed was a business meeting to discuss a potential joint venture involving a performance venue. The two men were never heard from again by their families and were reported missing on April 11. A couple of days later, on April 13, firefighters in a rural area of Griffin in Spalding County responded to a call about a vehicle fire.
They discovered a Chevrolet pickup truck engulfed in flames just off Jackson Road. As they extinguished the blaze, they made a grim discovery in the truck's bed: the bodies of two men, later identified as Carlos Benford and Joshua Wyatt, concealed under trash and debris. The fire had been so intense that it destroyed the truck's vehicle identification number.
The investigation into the double homicide quickly led authorities to a residence on Dutchman Road in Griffin. When they executed a search warrant, they found the house had been recently vacated. In the backyard, furniture and other items from inside the home had been piled up and burned. The interior of the house smelled strongly of bleach, an apparent attempt by the perpetrators to destroy evidence. Despite these efforts, crime scene investigators were able to locate the room where Benford and Wyatt had been shot multiple times.
The investigation revealed that after the murders, the bodies of the two men were placed in the bed of the stolen pickup truck and covered with garbage. The truck remained in the yard for several days before being driven to the secluded wooded area where it was set on fire.
A significant break in the case came with the arrest of Erik Eduardo Cabrealopez. He was apprehended after a car chase in Atlanta that ended when a state trooper performed a PIT maneuver. Following his arrest, several other individuals were also taken into custody in connection with the murders. These included Carmen Emilio Torres, Alicia Rojo Sanchez, Kristin Cordero-Rojas, Marco Antonio Gonzales-Cabrera, and Eric Butler, who faced various charges ranging from murder and armed robbery to evidence tampering and concealing a death.
In September 2023, following an eight-day trial where the jury considered over 600 pieces of evidence, Erik Cabrealopez and Carmen Emilio Torres were found guilty on all counts. Their deliberations lasted just two hours. Both men were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the murders of Carlos Benford and Joshua Wyatt, as well as for charges of armed robbery and arson. The charges against at least one of the other suspects, Alicia Rojo Sanchez, were still pending at the time of the convictions.
