‘Rios’ death not a homicide’

The Department of Public Safety has now ruled that the death of 67-year-old Jesus Pinaula Rios was not a homicide, but the cause of death of the Finasisu resident remains unknown.

During a news briefing last week with acting DPS commissioner Anthony Macaranas, Capt. Jeffrey Olopai, who is the commander of the Criminal Bureau Investigations, said that DPS no longer treats the case as a homicide because, based on the findings reported by a local examiner, there was no trauma to the body and there were no obvious signs of foul play.

Olopai noted that the medical examiner, whom he did not identify, did an external investigation on Rios’ remains but performed no autopsy on the body.

“There was an external examination conducted on the deceased on Feb. 27, and from the findings of our local examiner, there was no indication of foul play, there was no trauma to the deceased at the time of the examination,” he said.

Rios was reported missing by a family member on Feb. 5. His decomposing body was later found beneath bushes near a compound across the Happy Market on Feb. 10, which authorities interpret to mean he had been dead for a while.

When asked why DPS did not locate him sooner, given that his body was found near his home, Olopai said DPS conducted their search as soon as they could but Rios was already dead when he was found.

“We conducted the search as soon as we got the information. It was unfortunate that we were unable to locate him at the time and by the time we had located him, Mr. Rios had already passed,” he said.

Rios’ death, when it was still being treated as a homicide, was the third homicide of 2024 that CIB was investigating. The other two homicides that remain under investigation were the brutal killings of partners Wang Jindong, 57, and Liu Shuping, 52 in Finasisu.

“As for the double homicide, that case remains pending,” said Olopai.

When asked for updates, Olopai shared that all evidence acquired from the double homicide investigation have been sent to the Guam Police Department’s lab for analysis.

“We have sent off a number of evidence to a lab in Guam for analysis. We have been working closely with our federal partners, to include GPD lab, and once the results come back, we should have something more solid to share,” he said.

Olopai mentioned that DPS has some leads but cannot divulge them until they have gotten the evidence analysis results back from GPD.

“We have interviewed just about every person that we came across during our investigation. We’re at the phase where we’ve collected everything we have identified as viable evidence and sent them off to the lab,” he said.

Wang and Liu were victims of a brutal killing last January.

When the couple was found, Wang was found unresponsive while Liu was found covered in blood in their residence in Finasisu, the old Laddera International School that has been converted into an apartment since the school closed years ago.

While Wang was pronounced dead upon arrival to the Commonwealth Healthcare Center, Liu fought for her life for days before succumbing to her injuries.

Dr. Philip Dauterman, who performed the autopsies, determined that both individuals died from blunt force trauma to the head.