In the summer of 2019, the lives of a young mother and her two children were violently ended in Des Moines, Iowa. The victims were Rossibeth Flores-Rodriguez, 29; her 11-year-old daughter, Grecia Daniela Alvarado-Flores; and her 5-year-old son, Ever Jose Mejia-Flores, a Hispanic boy who was looking forward to starting kindergarten. Des Moines Public Schools later issued a statement mourning the loss, noting that Grecia had just completed the fifth grade at Moulton Elementary School.
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the night of July 16, 2019, a 911 call led police to a home on Day Street around 11 p.m. Inside, officers discovered the bodies of Rossibeth and her children. An autopsy would later confirm that all three had died from gunshot wounds. Court documents revealed that each victim had been shot twice in the head. The family had been renting a portion of the home from their housemate and his family.
The investigation quickly centered on 31-year-old Marvin Oswaldo Esquivel Lopez, who lived at the same address. Police said there had been a dispute between him and Rossibeth before the shooting. Esquivel Lopez was arrested the following day and charged with three counts of first-degree murder. Authorities stated there was no evidence of a domestic relationship between him and the victims. Federal immigration officials later reported that the suspect's real name was Marvin Oswaldo Escobar-Orellana and placed an immigration detainer on him.
The first trial of Marvin Esquivel Lopez began in April 2021. It ended in a mistrial after the jury announced it had reached a verdict on the murder of Rossibeth Flores-Rodriguez but was "very far apart" and unable to agree on the two charges related to the deaths of her children. The judge declared a mistrial on all three counts, and prosecutors prepared for a new trial.
In January 2022, Esquivel Lopez was retried and convicted by a new jury on all three counts of first-degree murder. The following month, a judge sentenced him to three consecutive life terms in prison without the possibility of parole. During the sentencing hearing, the prosecutor described the murder of the mother as "horrific" but said the murders of her two children were even worse, calling the act of ending their innocent lives "unthinkable." The case was officially closed as of February 2022.
