Judge hears final arguments before October trial of Greeley arson, murder suspect 2021 – Greeley Tribune

One of the two women accused of killing a Greeley man and setting fire to his home in October 2021 is scheduled to stand trial later this year after the court heard final pre-trial testimony at a hearing on Wednesday.

Stacy Rodriguez, 22, appeared before Weld District Judge Vincente Vigil to give that testimony while Vigil worked out the details of some pending motions.

Rodriguez and former co-defendant Hosanna Varela were arrested in November 2021 following an incident on October 3 of that year, when a caller reported a large house fire in the 2400 block of 15th Avenue Court. The caller believed the home's resident, 35-year-old Chris Dickerson, was still inside.

Police found the house ablaze and upon entering found Dickerson's body burned beyond recognition on the ground floor near the entrance. Dickerson suffered stab wounds to the neck before the fire started and the Weld County coroner ruled his death a homicide.

Varela took a deal in November, pleading guilty to first-degree arson, tampering with evidence and aiding and abetting murder. She was sentenced to 32 years in prison, with the possibility of reducing that sentence if she testifies truthfully against Rodriguez at her upcoming trial.

Although Rodriguez's case dates back to Oct. 3, 2021, Wednesday's testimony focused primarily on an evening nearly two weeks later, Oct. 16, 2021, when Rodriguez and Varela went to a downtown bar with one of Varela's friends.

Prosecutors wanted to show that Rodriguez's jealousy that night revealed her motive for killing Dickerson, but Vigil ruled that the testimony could not be presented at the trial later this year.

On October 16, 2021, Varela arranged to meet a friend at a bar in Evans. When they arrived, Varela received a call from Rodriguez, who asked the two to pick her up.

“I don't think it was a protective measure,” the friend said of the way Rodriguez treated Varela. “I think it was a controlling measure. It was something like, 'If I don't like what you're doing, then you don't do it.'”

They picked up Rodriguez, and after turning him away from several bars because Rodriguez was underage, the trio ended up at a bar on 8th Avenue around midnight.

Varela's friend said Rodriguez watched him and Varela all night. He initially attributed this to jealousy, but later realized that Rodriguez may have been afraid Varela would spill the beans about the alleged murder.

The friend testified that he sensed that Rodriguez did not like him without ever meeting him, but acknowledged that the tension increased as the evening went on – because he felt that Rodriguez had ruined his evening with a friend.

The evening ended with Rodriguez and Varela dropping the friend off at his house. As they approached his home, the man said Rodriguez — who was in the back seat — reached over him, opened the door and pushed him out of the car, which was “still traveling at a good rate of speed, he said.”

Varela stopped the car, and Rodriguez and the man briefly got into an argument, the man said. Rodriguez began attacking the man, punching him in the face and smashing his face into the concrete, he testified.

In an offer Varela wrote after her confession, she mentioned that Rodriguez became jealous of Dickerson after he hit on Varela, and that this – at least in part – drove Rodriguez to kill him. The prosecution attempted to prove Rodriguez's jealous nature, arguing that this led her to kill Dickerson.

Under Colorado state law, evidence of prior criminal offenses cannot be admitted at trial as evidence of a defendant's prior criminal propensity unless the probative value of relevant facts surrounding the case outweighs the danger that the evidence will unreasonably prejudice the jury.

Vigil concluded, based largely on Varela's testimony in the offering that Rodriguez was jealous of Dickerson, that the friend's testimony about the nighttime outing did not provide enough new and relevant information about Rodriguez's motive to outweigh the potential negative consequences of retelling the story to a jury.

“The value of this evidence is much less when you consider that Ms. Varela made an offer and disclosed a fairly detailed description of the allegations,” Vigil said. “The situation might be different if Varela had never disclosed this information.”

Varela will have a pretrial conference on October 1 before her 10-day trial begins on October 14. She is charged with first-degree premeditated murder, first-degree arson, tampering with a corpse and second-degree burglary.

Originally published: August 15, 2024 at 8:05 am