What to know about the Jesse Valencia murder case

Publish date: 2024-03-17

JESSE Valencia was a rising senior at the University of Missouri when his body was found on campus close to his apartment.

Following a gripping Hulu documentary about Jesse's death, an episode of Dateline will air on February 24, 2022, about his murder.

Who was Jesse Valencia?

Jesse grew up in the small town of Perryville, Kentucky, and was born on February 22, 1981.

According to his college transcript, Jesse Valencia was a rising senior at the University of Missouri, studying history and pre-law.

Hulu's episode four of How I Caught My Killer features Jesse's murder and states that he was involved in the local social justice scene, and dreamed of becoming a lawyer.

His body was found on Wilson Avenue in Columbia, Missouri, early on June 5, 2004.

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According to the police report, he'd been choked, and his throat was slit.

He also only had on a pair of boxers.

The first investigator on the scene, Jeff Westbrook, told Hulu: "When the other investigators arrived, we were brainstorming, 'What happened here?'"

What happened to Jesse Valencia?

Police reports state that Jesse's neighbor heard arguing around 3.30am on June 5, 2004.

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He told police that he'd heard two men arguing and he banged on the wall, yelling for them to 'shut up' before they fell silent.

Randy Boehm was the Chief of Police of the Columbia Police department in 2004 when Jesse was murdered.

He stated that they believed Jesse had run away from his murderer, which explained why his body was found seven houses down from where he lived.

The medical examiner determined that Jesse's throat had been slit with a serrated knife so profoundly that it had severed his corroded artery and cut into his vertebrae.

Who killed Jesse Valencia?

The police department received an anonymous phone call telling them that Jesse had been having an affair with one of their own police officers.

Then, police discovered that an officer named Steven Rios had arrested Jesse six weeks before Jesse's death while breaking up a house party.

Police records show that Rios admitted to having an affair with Jesse but claims he had nothing to do with the murder.

The police report states that a few days later, Jesse's best friend called them and told them that Jesse threatened to tell the police chief about their relationship if he didn't get the charges dropped from his arrest at the party.

This gave them a motive for Rios to have murdered Jesse.

Ultimately, they had to wait weeks for DNA evidence to come back.

A DNA sample taken from underneath Jesse's fingernails came back as a match for Rios, as did some hairs on Jesse's body.

The police arrested Rios and charged him with the murder.

What happened to Steven Rios?

The case against Rios went to trial on May 17, 2005.

He took the stand and told the jury he was innocent.

After four days in the court, the jury deliberated for 14 hours and then returned with a guilty verdict of first-degree murder.

However, two years later, an appeals court overturned the case, citing that hearsay had been used in his trial.

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He was tried again and received a second-degree murder conviction, with a life sentence.

Rios is currently in the South Dakota state prison.

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