Police detained the suspected murderer of a young woman more than a year after she was found dead in the back of a burning car.
Investigators claimed that in the spring of 2023, 22-year-old Sencere Hayes shoved Mercedes Vega, a 22-year-old exotic dancer in Phoenix, in the backseat of a burning Chevy Malibu on a roadside in Tonopah, Nevada, after pouring bleach down her neck, according to NBC News.
Vega was also shot and assaulted, according to an autopsy.
Erika and Tom Pillsbury, Vega’s parents, claimed that a detective knocked on their door in April to inform them that their daughter had been brutally murdered.
“That’s when he told us that Mercedes was abducted and that she had been hit over the head and forced into a vehicle and that she was shot through her right arm and that she had been burned alive,” Erika stated to KSAZ-TV.
The autopsy results revealed that “we didn’t find out about the bleach in her throat until much later,” Tom continued.
Authorities said they were planning to extradite Hayes back to Arizona to face charges after he was apprehended in Tennessee on Monday after he had been on the run for 17 months.
Erika recalled that when the investigator in charge of the Pillsburys’ daughter’s investigation informed them that a suspect in her murder had been apprehended, “I could hear this elation in his voice,” and he stated, “We got him.” “We got him.”
Whether Hayes allegedly acted alone is unknown.
“What gives us hope is that she is going to be vindicated, and she is going to get justice,” Tom stated to the reporter.
The motivation and connection between the alleged murderer and the victim were not further explained by the authorities.