Yexeira Torres Pacheco Case: Murder Conviction Without a Body

The Yexeira Torres Pacheco case ended with her former boyfriend, ex-police officer Roberto Quiñones Rivera, convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to 99 years in prison, even though her body has never been found. Prosecutors won the conviction on DNA, forensic, and circumstantial evidence, and the Puerto Rico Court of Appeals upheld it in 2017, making it the first murder conviction in Puerto Rico sustained on appeal without the victim’s remains.¹

Who Yexeira Torres Pacheco Was

Yexeira Torres Pacheco, known to family and friends as “Jessie,” was a 23-year-old professional dancer and choreographer from Carolina, Puerto Rico. She had gained recognition for her work with the young reggaeton artist Miguelito and, at the time she disappeared, was preparing to begin rehearsals with new artists. She had also earned a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice and hoped to become a lawyer and judge.²

The Disappearance

Torres Pacheco met Roberto Quiñones Rivera through a social network in 2010, and they moved in together in Villa Carolina. Her sister, Jeanderish Torres Pacheco, later described him as “jealous and controlling,” and Torres Pacheco herself had called him suffocating. In the weeks before she vanished, she had left the shared home and was staying at her clothing store in Carolina.³

Her mother, Iris Pacheco Calderón, last spoke with her by phone on October 24, 2011. When the family could not reach her over the following days, they grew alarmed. On October 30, 2011, Jeanderish finally reached Quiñones Rivera by phone. According to her account, he responded that if something had happened to Yexeira, “it was well deserved.” The family filed a missing-person report that day.⁴

Roberto Quiñones Rivera

Quiñones Rivera was a former officer with the Puerto Rico Police Department. He had been expelled from the force after being booked for domestic violence and violations of Puerto Rico’s Controlled Substances Act, and he had a prior domestic violence case from 2003 on his record.⁵⁶

After separate charges were filed against him for document forgery and illegal possession of a police-issued bulletproof vest, he was declared a fugitive. He was arrested in the United States in December 2011, roughly two months after Torres Pacheco vanished.⁵

How Prosecutors Built a Case Without a Body

With no remains to work from, prosecutors constructed the case out of forensic and circumstantial evidence, backed by more than 60 witnesses.⁷

The most important physical evidence came from Quiñones Rivera’s white 1993 Ford Econoline van. Investigators recovered 12 blood samples from inside the vehicle, and scientific analysis confirmed they contained a female genetic profile matching Torres Pacheco’s DNA. Bloodstains were also found at the Villa Carolina residence the couple had shared. Authorities additionally documented that Quiñones Rivera still possessed a police-issued bulletproof vest and that his van carried a counterfeit registration decal.⁸

Whether the blood from the van could be used at trial became the central pretrial fight. In November 2013, Judge Berthaida Seijo Ortiz ruled that the samples had been obtained through unreasonable searches and ordered them suppressed.⁷ In April 2014, a Court of Appeals panel reversed that decision and allowed the samples in. The Puerto Rico Supreme Court denied Quiñones Rivera’s petition for certiorari on May 14, 2014, along with two later motions for reconsideration.⁹

Beyond the forensic evidence, prosecutors documented a pattern of domestic violence over the couple’s 15-month relationship, established that Quiñones Rivera was the last person to see Torres Pacheco alive, and highlighted his failure to contact her or help search for her after she disappeared. They also pointed to admissions he had allegedly made about his role in the crime.⁸

The Conviction and 99-Year Sentence

Formal charges of first-degree murder under Article 106(a) of the 2004 Puerto Rico Penal Code and destruction of evidence under Article 291 were filed on February 15, 2013. The charges alleged that Quiñones Rivera killed Torres Pacheco and disposed of her body between October 24 and October 29, 2011.¹⁰

The trial took place before a bench court at the Tribunal de Primera Instancia in Carolina and lasted about two and a half months. On August 12, 2014, the court found him guilty on both counts.⁹¹⁰⁶

Why the Case Is a Legal Landmark in Puerto Rico

The prosecution has been widely described as the first murder case in Puerto Rico in which a conviction was obtained and sustained without the recovery of the victim’s body.¹

In its appellate ruling, the Court of Appeals laid out the legal framework for no-body homicide prosecutions. Citing State v. Torres, 222 P.3d 409 (2009), the court held that recovering a body is not a necessary condition for establishing murder. Under Puerto Rico’s rules of evidence, circumstantial evidence carries the same intrinsic weight as direct evidence. If prosecutors present enough circumstantial proof to establish the elements of the crime and connect the accused to it, a conviction can stand even without a corpse, so long as the evidence produces “certainty and moral conviction in a conscience exempt from preoccupation.”¹⁰

Lead prosecutor Alma Méndez Ríos was named Prosecutor of the Year at the 25th Annual Conference of the Public Ministry of Puerto Rico’s Department of Justice for her work on the case. She called the prosecution a “colossal challenge” and said her approach relied on being “very rigorous in taking full advantage of investigative means, technology, and the applicable law.”¹¹

Appeals and Post-Conviction Efforts

Quiñones Rivera appealed on multiple grounds, including the sufficiency of the evidence for proving premeditation and cause of death without a body, the credibility of prosecution witnesses, alleged errors in admitting character evidence and hearsay, and the trial court’s denial of his motion for acquittal. A three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals confirmed the conviction and sentence on November 8, 2017.¹⁰

He kept challenging the conviction. On December 28, 2022, he filed a motion under Rule 192.1 of Puerto Rico’s Rules of Criminal Procedure, an extraordinary post-conviction remedy, claiming that newly surfaced testimony from an officer identified as Agente Pérez Maysonet would show there had been no probable cause for the traffic stop that led to the search of his van. The trial court denied the motion on January 30, 2023, finding that the defense had known about the officer during the original proceedings and made a strategic decision not to call him, and that the motion improperly tried to relitigate issues already resolved by final judgments. The Court of Appeals affirmed the denial on April 24, 2023, noting that Rule 192.1 is an exceptional remedy that cannot substitute for the regular appellate process.¹²

A Family Still Waiting for Remains

The emotional toll on Torres Pacheco’s family has been severe. Iris Pacheco Calderón suffered a stroke after her daughter’s disappearance that impaired her speech. During a court hearing in August 2012, her testimony had to be suspended after her blood pressure spiked.¹³

She has repeatedly asked Quiñones Rivera to reveal where her daughter’s remains are so the family can bury her. In 2014, she pleaded: “For the love he says he had for my daughter, let him return her in little bones, however it may be.”¹⁴

In May 2019, after Quiñones Rivera gave a prison interview claiming innocence, saying he still loved Torres Pacheco and had converted to Christianity, Pacheco Calderón responded on the program Dando Candela. She called him “a liar and manipulator” and challenged his professed faith: “Prove that you are truly in the arms of Jesus Christ and, for everyone’s peace of mind, return my daughter to me to give her a Christian burial.”¹⁵

Jeanderish Torres Pacheco testified during the preliminary hearings and trial. She told the court she was certain her sister was not alive: “If Yexeira were alive, she would have done the impossible to communicate with us.”⁴ Quiñones Rivera remains in prison. Torres Pacheco’s body has never been found.

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Microjuris al Día. Conferencia del Caso Yexeira Torres Pacheco en la Pontificia
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El Nuevo Día. Yexeira Torres Pacheco: La Bailarina Que Puerto Rico No Olvida
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NotiCel. Acusado Se Inculpó de Crimen de Yexeira, Según Su Madre
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Primera Hora. Hermana de Yexeira Declara en la Vista Contra Roberto Quiñones
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Primera Hora. Hoy Será Sentenciado Roberto Quiñones Rivera
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Telemundo PR. Sentencia de 99 Años a Roberto Quiñones por el Asesinato de Yexeira Torres
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Telemundo PR. Decisión Caso Yexeira
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vLex Puerto Rico. Sentencia Tribunal Apelativo
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Microjuris al Día. Alma Méndez Ríos del Caso Yexeira Es la Fiscal del Año
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Poder Judicial de Puerto Rico. Pueblo v. Roberto Quiñones Rivera, KLCE202300199
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Primera Hora. Madre de Yexeira Recibe Atención Médica en el Tribunal
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El Nuevo Día. Madre de Yexeira Vuelve a Reclamar los Restos de Su Hija
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NotiCel. Súplica de la Madre de Yexeira Torres al Convicto de Su Asesinato