Carmen Montelongo: Murder, Cover-Up, and Sentence

Carmen Montelongo is a Riverside, California woman convicted of first-degree murder in 2014 for stabbing her boyfriend, 62-year-old retired Boeing employee Samuel Wiggins Jr., 24 times at his Diamond Bar home in 2011, dismembering his body, and scattering the remains across multiple locations. She was sentenced to 26 years to life in state prison.¹² The case was later featured on Season 16 of the Oxygen series Snapped.³

Who the Victim Was

Samuel “Sam” Wiggins Jr. grew up in Compton, was drafted into the U.S. Army during Vietnam, and later worked at Boeing’s Seal Beach facility as a subcontract administrator handling aerospace component purchasing. He retired roughly five years before his death and lived alone on Meadow Falls Drive in Diamond Bar, where he had been for at least a decade.⁴

Wiggins was a lifelong bachelor who met Montelongo online about two years before he was killed. Family members said he was serious enough about the relationship that he intended to propose. His nephew, Ramon Martin, described him as a “second father” who had helped raise him after Martin was orphaned at nine. Wiggins also had a son and three grandchildren.⁵

The Killing

Investigators believe Wiggins was killed between mid-April and early May 2011 inside his Diamond Bar home.⁵ Montelongo stabbed him 24 times, twice in the chest and 22 times in the back, then dismembered his body.¹ She cleaned the scene thoroughly, pulling up carpet and tile to conceal evidence.⁶

The remains were split up. Some were buried in the backyard of a home on North Holmes Avenue in Ontario. Wiggins’ head and arms were placed inside large flower pots and sent to a rental home belonging to Montelongo’s cousin in Bell Gardens, roughly 36 miles away.⁶ Investigators also believed Montelongo may have paid a day laborer to help bury parts in the Ontario yard.⁷

The Motive and the Cover-Up

In the weeks after Wiggins disappeared, Montelongo moved into his house, used his credit cards, and drove his car.⁴ Family and friends told reporters they believed money was the motive. Wiggins had been supporting Montelongo’s family, including paying for her daughter’s college tuition and a car.⁵ When officers began checking on Wiggins, Montelongo told them she was still in regular contact with him and that he was alive, which delayed the investigation for weeks.²

Ramon Martin filed a missing person report on May 25, 2011, after not hearing from his uncle for about two weeks. He went to the Diamond Bar house himself and found blood spatter on the walls.⁵

How She Was Caught

On May 29, 2011, Ontario police officers spotted Montelongo pushing a 30-gallon wheeled trash can through a residential neighborhood near the 900 block of East H Street. Inside were Wiggins’ partially dismembered remains. She had moved the container roughly 200 yards from the North Holmes Avenue backyard where parts of the body had been buried. When an officer stopped her, she said the remains belonged to the “son-of-a-b—- that raped” her. She was arrested on the spot.⁸

The next day, investigators dug up the Ontario yard and recovered a torso and legs.⁹ On June 1, 2011, police recovered Wiggins’ head and arms from the flower pots at the Bell Gardens home, completing the recovery of the body.⁷

A key witness against Montelongo was her second cousin, Matthew Bell. At an October 2012 preliminary hearing, Bell testified that Montelongo had offered him a “large amount of money” on the day of her arrest to help move the remains from the Ontario yard. He said he found her unable to lift the body bag on her own, so she tore it open and threw individual body parts, including a rib cage, into the trash can. Bell said he never touched the remains and contacted his mother and police afterward.¹⁰

Trial, Mistrial, and Sentence

Montelongo was charged with one count of first-degree murder and pleaded not guilty at her first court appearance in Rancho Cucamonga on June 3, 2011. She was represented by Deputy Public Defender Rebecca Taft and held on $1 million bail.⁷

Jury selection began in January 2014, but on January 29 West Valley Superior Court Judge Gregory Tavill granted a mistrial after the defense raised unspecified pretrial motions. A jury had already been seated. Deputy District Attorney Erica Gallegos objected to the mistrial but declined to explain the issues publicly, saying she did not want to “taint a new jury.”¹¹

The retrial produced a conviction. On August 29, 2014, a San Bernardino County jury found Montelongo guilty of first-degree murder.¹ On September 29, 2014, she received a sentence of 26 years to life in state prison.²

Where the Case Stands

A California state appellate court affirmed Montelongo’s conviction in May 2016. She did not petition the California Supreme Court for review or file a state habeas corpus action. In October 2016, she filed a federal habeas corpus petition in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. On March 20, 2017, the court dismissed that action without prejudice, finding she had failed to exhaust her state court remedies and had not complied with court orders to fix the deficiency. She remained incarcerated in state prison as of that filing.¹²

1
KTLA. Riverside Woman Who Stabbed Boyfriend 24 Times Then Dismembered Him Is Sentenced
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Los Angeles Times. Woman Sentenced to 26 Years for Dismembering Boyfriend
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Oxygen. Snapped – Carmen Montelongo
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Pasadena Star-News. Authorities Say Woman Stabbed Diamond Bar Man to Death Before Dismembering Him
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Daily News. Nephew: Victim in Dismemberment Killing a Very Loving Man
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Daily Bulletin. Woman Sentenced in Ontario Body Parts Case
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ABC7. Diamond Bar Man Suspected Scene of Trash Can Remains Murder
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Daily Bulletin. Jury Selection Underway for Ontario Dismemberment Case
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Deseret News. DA: Money Possible Motive in Trash Can Body Case
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Daily Bulletin. Hearing for Dismembered Diamond Bar Man’s Accused Killer Begins
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Daily Bulletin. Judge Grants Mistrial in Ontario Killing, Dismembering Case
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Midpage. Carmen Montelongo Montenegro v. D