Crews Search for Body, Take Suspect Along

One of three men suspected of killing a Fullerton woman was taken by police Wednesday to Long Beach Harbor, where investigators believe the men may have dumped her body.

Three Fullerton police detectives, two lifeguards and one of the suspects, his face hidden by a jacket, left the harbor in a lifeguard boat. About a mile offshore, police spent an hour marking coordinates near an oil-drilling platform where investigators believe the suspects dumped the body of 20-year-old Jeanette Gomez Espeleta.

An Orange County sheriff’s dive team will search the area today, Fullerton Police Sgt. David Stanko said.

Espeleta, who was eight months pregnant, was last seen July 17. On Tuesday, police arrested her ex-boyfriend, 21-year-old Richard Tovar of Anaheim, in connection with her disappearance. He is believed to be the father of Espeleta’s unborn child. Two associates of Tovar--Henry Rodriguez, 22, of Anaheim and Nicholas Gray, 20, of Fullerton--also have been arrested.

Authorities said they believe that Espeleta was shot and that her body was weighted and dumped from a boat into the harbor.

Officers did not reveal the identity of the cooperating suspect, who was handcuffed and whose face was never visible to the throng of television camera crews that converged on the area. When police returned to the harbor with the man, they placed him in the back seat of an unmarked car and drove off.

Espeleta told her family shortly before she disappeared that she had served Tovar with court papers notifying him that he would be responsible for child support after their baby was born, said her sister, Jennifer Gomez Espeleta.

Stanko said reluctance to pay child support may have been Tovar’s motive for killing Espeleta.

“There may have been a financial motive,” he said.

The three suspects, who face murder and conspiracy charges, are to be arraigned today.

Espeleta was last seen leaving the 24 Hour Fitness gym in Anaheim at about 4 p.m. July 17, her sister said. She was on her way to visit relatives in Moreno Valley.

Police believe that Espeleta met the suspects that afternoon near the MainPlace mall in Santa Ana and was kidnapped, Stanko said. They say Tovar may have shot her and conspired with the other two suspects to dump her body in the harbor.

Investigators have impounded a 21-foot ski boat they believe the suspects used but do not yet have a murder weapon, Stanko said. Authorities said Espeleta’s Honda Accord was found abandoned near Rosarito, Mexico.