Man ordered to stand trial in Fairpark slaying

SALT LAKE CITY — As a late winter storm pounded Utah on Easter Sunday this year, Jinette Christensen stayed inside her Fairpark home, making Easter baskets and eating dinner with her two daughters and granddaughter.

Hours later, one of the daughters, 19-year-old Stephanie Williams, lay dead in her bedroom with two gunshots to the head, although Christensen did not find her body until she returned home from work the next afternoon.

The man who police say later confessed to shooting Williams, Delfino Arriaga-Luna, was ordered Monday to stand trial on charges of murder, obstructing justice and possession of a firearm by a restricted person.

Christensen testified at a preliminary hearing that Arriaga-Luna, 31, had been to the home about a dozen times, but her daughter wanted nothing to do with him.

The night of Easter Sunday, Christensen thought she heard the front door slam and got up to find it wide open. She heard talking in an alley next to the house but went back to bed and slept until morning.

"To this day, I don't have a clear understanding as to why she didn't hear the two gunshots," Salt Lake police detective Gil Arenaz testified.

Christensen told police she is a heavy sleeper and said in court Monday that sounds are "distorted" in her back bedroom.

A neighbor testified he heard a female voice say "no" just before a shot rang out. Another man who claimed to hear a shot was Victor Sanchez, who told police he was on the phone with someone in the house at the time of the shooting. Arenaz said Sanchez referred to Williams as "my girl," while Christensen said he had been in the home the month before to install a sink.

Sanchez threatened to chop Arriaga-Luna into "a million pieces" when he realized Williams was dead, Arenaz said. He was later charged with kidnapping for allegedly holding Arriaga-Luna's wife and children hostage the night of the homicide.

Police found Arriaga-Luna hiding in a closet in a friend's Salt Lake apartment. He had one handgun and had apparently sold another. Arenaz said a ballistics report has been delayed because the state crime lab no longer has a firearms expert.

A medical examiner found high levels of methamphetamine in Williams' body.

"I knew she was a user," Christensen said before confirming that police had raided the home in February looking for drugs.

Williams' father, Ross Mark Williams, said she lived with him in West Bountiful and had successfully completed probation for a prior offense before moving back to Salt Lake a year-and-a-half ago to care for her ailing grandmother, who died in January.

"She was very giving," he said. "She was always taking care of somebody else's problem before taking care of her own."

Arriaga-Luna's next hearing in 3rd District Court is scheduled for Dec. 3.

In a seemingly unrelated case, his brother, Benjamin Arriaga-Luna, 38, is charged with murder in the slaying of Benicio Hernandez-Herrera, 33, in West Jordan on April 4 — the day before Williams was killed.

e-mail: pkoepp@desnews.com TWITTER: DNewsCrimeTeam