Yesenia Sesmas: Faked Pregnancy, Kidnapping, and Hard 50 Sentence

Yesenia Sesmas is a former Wichita resident who was convicted in 2018 of first-degree premeditated murder for killing her friend Laura Abarca-Nogueda in Wichita, Kansas, on November 17, 2016, and kidnapping Abarca’s six-day-old daughter. Sesmas, who had faked a pregnancy after a miscarriage, drove from Dallas to Wichita, shot Abarca in the head, and took the newborn back to Texas to pass off as her own. She was arrested two days later, the baby was recovered unharmed, and a Sedgwick County judge sentenced her to a “hard 50” life term, meaning she must serve 50 years before parole eligibility.

A Faked Pregnancy and a Plan

Sesmas and Laura Abarca-Nogueda had worked together during the years Sesmas lived in Wichita.¹ By 2016 Sesmas had moved to Dallas, where she lived with her boyfriend, her son, and her niece.²

Sesmas had become pregnant but miscarried. She never told her husband or her family. Instead she continued to act as though she were expecting, staged a baby shower, and prepared a nursery for a girl. Abarca was the only person she told about the miscarriage.³ According to her later confession, Sesmas asked Abarca to hand over the baby Abarca was carrying. When that plan fell through, she bought a .40 caliber Sig Sauer handgun from an unidentified man in Dallas for $450.²

An Earlier Attempt Months Before

Sesmas had tried something similar four months earlier. On July 25, 2016, she lured Adriana Portillo, an acquaintance who was eight months pregnant, and Portillo’s two daughters, ages 3 and 10, to her south Wichita home on the pretense of giving them clothing and a television. Once inside, Sesmas forced all three into the basement, where she had staged a knife, a baseball bat, and duct tape. She demanded $10,000 from Portillo’s husband and ordered Portillo to bind her daughters’ hands.⁴

Portillo fought back and her children escaped to the family vehicle. Sesmas was arrested and charged with two counts of aggravated battery, two counts of aggravated kidnapping, and one count of kidnapping.² She posted bond and was released. ICE was notified of the arrest, but only after she was already out; officials later said they would have requested a hold had she still been in custody.⁵ Portillo later said she believed she was Sesmas’s “first intended victim.”⁶

The Killing of Laura Abarca-Nogueda

Laura Abarca-Nogueda, 27, gave birth to a daughter, Sophia Victoria Gonzalez Abarca, on November 11, 2016. She lived in a Wichita apartment with her mother, Guadalupe Nogueda, and her fiancé, Manuel Gonzalez.⁷

On November 16, Sesmas drove from Dallas to Wichita in her boyfriend’s black Dodge pickup and visited Abarca, using the visit to scout the apartment’s layout and to work out when Abarca would be home alone. She returned the next day. WhatsApp messages showed the two in contact until Abarca stopped responding around 1:00 p.m.³ Around 3:30 p.m., Abarca’s fiancé came home to find her body on the couch. She had been shot in the head. Six-day-old Sophia was gone.⁸ Prosecutors later argued that Sesmas killed Abarca because leaving her alive would have meant an immediate call to police reporting the kidnapping.

Investigators quickly identified Sesmas as the suspect using the WhatsApp messages and cell tower records that placed her near the apartment at the time of the killing and back in Dallas afterward. Wichita police asked Dallas authorities to move. Early on November 19, a SWAT team executed a search warrant at the Dallas home. Baby Sophia was there, unharmed. Sesmas was arrested. DNA testing confirmed the infant was Abarca’s daughter, and ballistics tied the gun found in Sesmas’s closet to the bullet that killed her.³

Three Different Stories

Sesmas was interviewed in Dallas by Wichita Detective Michelle Tennyson and Spanish-speaking Dallas Detective Jose Ortiz-Vives. She initially marked “no” on a Miranda waiver form, invoking her right to silence. She later restarted the conversation herself by asking about her children, was read her rights again, and confessed.³

Her account shifted three times. First she said she had paid an unknown man $1,000 at Planeview Park to kidnap the baby for her. Then she said she had hired him and given him the gun, but told him not to use it. Finally she admitted she was the one who confronted Abarca, claiming the gun went off accidentally when she struck the victim in the forehead. A Wichita detective testified that no evidence supported the existence of any hired man.⁷ Sesmas also told Dallas police that Abarca had originally agreed to give her the baby but “backed out of the deal.”⁹

Trial, Conviction, and a Hard 50 Sentence

Sesmas was charged in Sedgwick County District Court with first-degree premeditated murder, kidnapping, and aggravated interference with parental custody. The trial opened on May 30, 2018, before Judge Terry Pullman. The defense did not contest that Sesmas was the shooter but argued the killing was not premeditated, pointing to her diagnosis of generalized anxiety disorder. Sesmas herself had told investigators, “I’m responsible because I shot her, but it wasn’t intentional.”¹ On June 5, 2018, the jury convicted her on all counts.⁷

She was sentenced on July 13, 2018. For the murder, Judge Pullman imposed a “hard 50” life term. Under Kansas law, a defendant convicted of premeditated first-degree murder under this provision must serve at least 50 years before becoming eligible for parole, with no reduction for good-time credits.¹⁰ Sesmas received an additional 61 months for the kidnapping and 13 months for aggravated interference with parental custody, running concurrently with each other but consecutively to the life sentence.⁸ Abarca’s mother, sister, and fiancé addressed the court before sentencing. Sesmas declined to speak.⁷

The Portillo Case and an Immigration Hold

In September 2018, Sesmas pleaded guilty to three counts of attempted kidnapping for the July 2016 attack on Adriana Portillo and her daughters. On October 30, 2018, Judge Pullman sentenced her to 204 months, running concurrently with her life sentence.⁶ ICE identified Sesmas as an undocumented Mexican national and placed a detainer on her; under the terms of her sentence, if she is ever paroled she is to be delivered directly from prison to Mexico.²

The Kansas Supreme Court Appeal

Sesmas appealed on two grounds. She argued her confession was involuntary because police had told her that her children were with Child Protective Services and that it would “take quite a while” for a lawyer to arrive from Wichita. She also argued the prosecution had violated her due process rights by eliciting testimony about her initial refusal to waive Miranda, a category of error known as a Doyle violation after Doyle v. Ohio.⁸

In a decision filed March 13, 2020, authored by Justice Beier, the Kansas Supreme Court affirmed. On the confession, the court found that under the totality of the circumstances her will was not overborne; she had reopened the conversation herself, and police made no threats or promises about her children’s custody. On the Doyle issue, the court agreed a constitutional violation had occurred but found it harmless beyond a reasonable doubt, given that Sesmas’s credibility had already been “thoroughly impeached” by her shifting accounts and the physical evidence against her.³

Baby Sophia was returned to her father, Manuel Gonzalez, after her recovery in Dallas. Abarca’s brother, Jose Abarca, said Sophia strongly resembles her mother, calling the child “a little piece of Laura that is still here.”⁷

1
CBS News. Texas Woman Guilty in Death, Stealing Baby
2
Oxygen. Yesenia Sesmas Sentenced for Killing Friend, Stealing Baby
3
Kansas Supreme Court. State v. Sesmas, No. 119,862
4
KWCH. Woman Says Baby Sophia Kidnapper Also Tried to Kidnap Her
5
CBS News. Yesenia Sesmas, Suspect in Wichita Mom’s Killing, in U.S. Illegally
6
Wichita Eagle. Yesenia Sesmas Sentenced in Attempted Kidnapping Case
7
KWCH. Trial Begins for Woman Accused of Killing Wichita Mother, Kidnapping Baby
8
Kansas Supreme Court. State v. Sesmas, Kansas Courts
9
ABC13. Dallas Woman to Stand Trial for Murder and Baby’s Kidnapping
10
Kansas Legislature. K.S.A. 21-6620