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Background: Authorities at the Home Depot in Cypress Park, Calif., where Valentino Gutierrez allegedly set fire to a suitcase containing his wife’s body parts (KABC). Left inset: Valentino Gutierrez (Los Angeles Police Department). Right inset: Tiana Alfred (LAPD).
A murder case against a California man accused of killing his wife, dismembering her body and setting it on fire in a suitcase — which he lugged around on public transit before torching it in a Home Depot parking lot — has been suspended after his lawyers raised a doubt of mental competence.
Valentino Gutierrez, 64, allegedly committed the “particularly disturbing” homicide and dismemberment of his wife Tiana Alfred, 31, back in 2018, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office. He is charged with murder and arson of property after allegedly strangling Alfred and setting her body parts ablaze at a Home Depot in the 2000 block of Figueroa Street.
Prosecutors told Law&Crime on Wednesday that Gutierrez’s lawyers raised a doubt of mental competence at a hearing on July 17. He is scheduled to appear on July 31 for his mental-competency hearing.
Gutierrez is accused of traveling on a Gold Line Metro train in Pasadena with a bicycle and the suitcase after Alfred’s murder. He allegedly got off the train at the Lincoln/Cypress Station stop and rode his bike with the luggage to a Home Depot in the 2000 block of Figueroa Street, where he tried torching it.
“Once the fire was put out, the firefighters found human remains,” according to a DA’s office press release. “Surveillance video allegedly led investigators to Gutierrez who was later arrested.”
Alfred’s murder was believed to have occurred on or around Jan. 31, 2018, at a Pasadena restaurant that had been closed for several months. Gutierrez allegedly dismembered her there, with cops saying they never discovered an official motive.
“To dismember an individual like that is pretty grotesque and it takes an awful lot of effort and determination by an individual, which is pretty cold,” LAPD Capt. Billy Hayes, an investigator on the case, told reporters at a February 2018 press conference after Gutierrez’s arrest, per the Los Angeles Times.
The slaying was a “particularly disturbing homicide because of its sheer brutality,” according to Deputy Chief Justin Eisenberg.
Prosecutors believe Gutierrez and his wife were allegedly homeless and living at a shelter for several months leading up to the murder. Gutierrez has a lengthy criminal history, including arrests and convictions for robbery, battery, domestic violence and possession of a deadly weapon.
