A Colorado jury has convicted a woman in one of the state’s most disturbing child homicide cases, bringing an end to a gruesome story that began with the discovery of human remains earlier this year.
On August 27, Corena Minjarez, 39, was found guilty of two counts of first-degree murder and two counts of abuse of a corpse in the deaths of her boyfriend’s children, three-year-old Yesenia Dominguez and five-year-old Jesus Dominguez Jr. She was sentenced the same day to life in prison without parole.
Investigators say no one has seen the children since 2018, but at the same time they were never reported missing. So what tipped off authorities? In January, an anonymous tip led police to a Pueblo storage unite where they discovered a metal container packed with concrete. DNA testing revealed that the remains belonged to Yesenia. Investigators later found the body of Jesus Jr. in a suitcase hidden inside the trunk of an abandoned vehicle in a scrapyard to Minjarez.
The revelations horrified Pueblo residents and raised painful questions about how two young children could vanish for so long without notice. Prosecutors argued Minjarez not only participated in the killings but actively helped cover them up. Evidence included receipts showing concrete purchased with her credit card and records tying the storage unit to her name.
The children’s father, Jesus Dominguez Sr., was also implicated. He was arrested and later pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, tampering with a deceased human body, and abuse of a corpse. As part of his plea deal, he agreed to testify against Minjarez. His sentencing is scheduled for September 12. Prosecutors said his cooperation helped secure the conviction.
During Minjarez’s trial, her defense attorneys suggested she acted out of fear and loyalty to Dominguez Sr., portraying him as the one ultimately responsible for the children’s deaths. But jurors were unmoved. The guilty verdict underscored prosecutors’ argument that Minjarez was fully complicit and bore direct responsibility.
The case has rattled Pueblo, a working-class city of just over 100,000 people, where the community has struggled to come to terms with both the brutality of the crime and the long delay in uncovering it. Neither Yesenia nor Jesus Jr. had been enrolled in school or daycare programs that might have flagged their absence. Authorities have not publicly detailed why their disappearance went unnoticed for so many years.
For now, what’s clear is that two children’s lives ended in secret, their bodies hidden in places meant to erase them from memory.
