COLORADO SPRINGS — A jury Monday convicted Salvator Esquivel-Castillo of first-degree murder in the July 2007 death of Jaclyn Funderburg, his former girlfriend and the mother of his son.
After nearly 12 hours of deliberations since Friday, the five-woman, seven-man jury also found the 37-year-old restaurant and construction worker guilty of the lesser charge of second-degree murder but acquitted him of a first-degree kidnapping charge.
In doing so, the jurors apparently rejected the defendant’s claim that Funderburg, a 22-year-old Wendy’s manager, died of a methamphetamine overdose.
However, by finding him innocent of the first-degree kidnapping charge, the jury may have accepted part of Esquivel-Castillo’s story that Funderburg was already dead when he tossed her body off a cliff.
Earlier in the day, the jurors asked the judge whether it was possible for a dead person to be kidnapped. He replied no.
On July 22, 2007, the El Paso County Search and Rescue team found Funderburg’s body buried beneath a rock at the base of the cliff after an anonymous tipster lead authorities to the area. She had been missing for 11 days.
Esquivel-Castillo faces life in prison without the possibility of parole when he is sentenced on June 19 by 4th Judicial District Judge David Shakes. He will also be sentenced that day for an earlier conviction of first-degree assault for a May 2007 incident in which he broke Funderburg’s jaw.
Read what happened in court at .
