Double murder suspect accused of 2016 Indio shooting pleads not guilty
A man accused of two murders, one in Indio in 2016 and one in Arizona earlier this month, pleaded not guilty.
38-year-old Marcos Cruz Gaeta appeared in court at the Larson Justice in Indio Tuesday morning for his arraignment. According to booking records and confirmed by a criminal complaint, Gaeta was charged with first-degree murder, and being a felon in possession of a firearm. He pleaded not guilty to both counts.
Booking records also list a charge of second-degree murder, being a fugitive from justice, as well as a sentence-enhancing firearm allegation.
Gaeta was arrested Friday at the Circle K at the intersection Date Palm Drive and Ramon Road in Indio by a joint task force composed of members of the Riverside County Gang Impact team and the Indio Police Department Street Crimes Unit.
Gaeta is suspected of fatally shooting 30-year-old Jamie Maher on August 30 2016. Maher was found at residence on the 82300 block of Santa Rosa Avenue with multiple gunshot wounds.
Authorities identify Indio woman shot and killed Sunday night
Gaeta is also suspected of committing a second murder in Avondale Arizona according to the Riverside County District Attorney’s office.
“Where Jamie is, she doesn’t need justice, but our family needs justice and the community needs justice,” said Maher’s mother, Valerie Silveira. “I am so grateful to the Indio Police Department for everything they’ve done for us and how hard they’ve worked to bring us justice.”
He is being held without bail.
{“url”:”https://twitter.com/RivCoDA/status/1104455020223688704″,”author_name”:”Riverside County DA’s Office”,”author_url”:”https://twitter.com/RivCoDA”,”html”:”&#lt;blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”&#gt;&#lt;p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”&#gt;A man wanted on suspicion of a 2016 murder in Indio & a murder in Avondale, Arizona, was arrested on March 8, in a joint effort by the Riverside County Gang Impact Team (GIT) & the &#lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/Indiopd?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”&#gt;@Indiopd&#lt;/a&#gt; Street Crimes Unit (SCU). Based on extensive investigations…MORE… &#lt;a href=”https://t.co/IJ3KzzwGOP”&#gt;pic.twitter.com/IJ3KzzwGOP&#lt;/a&#gt;&#lt;/p&#gt;– Riverside County DA’s Office (@RivCoDA) &#lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/RivCoDA/status/1104455020223688704?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”&#gt;March 9, 2019&#lt;/a&#gt;&#lt;/blockquote&#gt;n&#lt;script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″&#gt;&#lt;/script&#gt;n”,”width”:550,”height”:null,”type”:”rich”,”cache_age”:”3153600000″,”provider_name”:”Twitter”,”provider_url”:”https://twitter.com”,”version”:”1.0″}
