By Pepper Fisher
Tacoma – A 25-year-old Renton man was sentenced Monday in U.S. District Court in Tacoma to just under 17 years (200 months) in prison for second degree murder for the death of a 21-year-old woman whose body was found in the Olympic National Forest in 2020.
The victim, Dioneth Lopez of San Pablo, CA. had traveled to the Seattle area to meet up with Alejandro Aguilera Rojas. The two then traveled to the Sequim area on February 10, 2020.
Court records show Aguilera Rojas was having an intimate relationship with the victim, a relationship hidden from his wife and family. A friend of the victim reported her missing to law enforcement when she did not contact them after February 10.
Her body was found off a logging road in the Buckhorn Wilderness area of Olympic National Forest on February 14. There were signs she had been beaten and stabbed. A broken and bloody tequila bottle and knives were located near where the victim’s body was discovered, but there was no identification on the body.
Investigators found surveillance video from a Sequim convenience store that showed the couple had visited the store. Law enforcement was also able to determine that Aguilera Rojas’ cell phone and the victim’s phone had been in the area of the murder on February 10 and 11 and that both phones had then travelled back to the area of Aguilera Rojas’ residence, after the victim had been killed.
Aguilera Rojas was interviewed by law enforcement on February 19, 2020. He made a number of different statements about his relationship with the victim and what had happened, but he eventually told investigators that he drove Lopez into the forest and, following a fight, struck her in the head with a tequila bottle.
Aguilera Rojas was booked into Clallam County Corrections where he was held on $1 million until being taken into federal custody. Because the murder occurred on federal land in the Olympic National Forest, the case was prosecuted in federal court.
Aguilera Rojas pleaded guilty to second degree murder in December 2021.
The case was investigated by the FBI and the Clallam County Sheriff’s Office, with significant assistance from the Washington State Patrol.