GREELEY — Robert Laurencio Montoya, the 18-year-old man accused of sexually assaulting a 12-year-old girl whose body was found in May 19 in a Greeley irrigation ditch, has been ordered to stand trial.
Weld District Court Judge Marcello Kopcow scheduled a four-day jury trial for Montoya to begin Nov. 15.
Defense attorneys this morning told the court that Montoya, who was living with Kayleah Wilson’s family, their client had sex with the 6th grader once in December, well before he turned 18 on Jan. 18.
But prosecutors said Montoya told police that he had sex with Kayleah every day, well beyond his 18th birthday.
Montoya was arrested May 19, just hours after Kayleah’s badly decomposed body was found in an irrigation ditch near the Sunset Memorial Cemetery in Greeley.
He had been considered a person of interest since Kayleah disappeared March 28 as she walked from her family’s apartment near the Greeley Mall to a birthday party not far away.
He was charged with two counts of sexual assault of a child after police investigating Kayleah’s disappearance learned there had been sexual contact between her and Montoya.
Montoya has since been held in the Weld County Jail. Bail was set at $100,000. This morning Kopcow refused to reduce the bond.
Kayleah’s mother April Wilson testified that she confronted her daughter and Montoya on Jan. 10. During that conversation, Montoya told her he had sex once with Kayleah, in December. Wilson then kicked him out of her home.
“I told him I never wanted to see him around my house again,” Wilson said.
But Greeley Police Detective Christian Morgan testified that Montoya said he first had sex with Kayleah on New Year’s Day 2010, and then on a regular basis, whenever they were alone. Their sexual relationship ended Feb. 12, Morgan said.
During the two month search for Kayleah, the girl’s friends told police that she had commented to them about possibly being pregnant. In court this morning, investigators said the autopsy of her body did not indicate she had been pregnant.
