Posted on 08/09/2007 9:26:50 AM PDT by wesley_windam-price
As 15-year-old Dani Countryman struggled beneath Gilberto Arellano Gamboa, pinned to the floor with her pants down, he called on his cousin to help subdue the girl. Alejandro Rivera Gamboa responded by stepping on Countryman's throat until she stopped moving.
That's how investigators described Countryman's death in a court document released Tuesday. Evidence outlined in the document included statements by the defendants and a bloody shoe that matched an imprint on Countryman's chest.
Gilberto Javier "Gabe" Arellano Gamboa, 23, who is also known as Rivera Gamboa, and Alejandro Emeterio "Alex" Rivera Gamboa, 24, were arraigned Tuesday in Clackamas County Circuit Court on charges of aggravated murder. Through a Spanish-speaking interpreter, they acknowledged the charges against them and asked for warmer jail clothes.
The men, who police believe are cousins, were held without bail in the Clackamas County Jail.
The cousins do not appear to have a criminal history or a long residence in Oregon, but their country of origin was unclear. U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement agents have interviewed the men, and a hearing will be held to determine their legal status, according to Detective Jim Strovink, spokesman for the Clackamas County Sheriff's Office.
Mystery enveloped the death of Countryman, an energetic and outgoing girl who was found dead July 28 in an apartment full of people who were asleep after an all-night party celebrating Countryman's last night in Oregon. Dani was scheduled to return home to Kaufman, Texas, later that day.
She had been in the Portland area for about a month, visiting her 20-year-old sister, Ashley. On the night of July 27, the sisters attended an informal party at a Milwaukie apartment complex where Ashley's boyfriend, Rick Sprayberry, lives.
Arellano Gamboa, who lives in Apartment 19, next door to the apartment where Dani was found dead, and his cousin, who lives in Clackamas, joined the party.
"They were just kind of bothering all the girls there," said Sprayberry's roommate, Vanessa Jacobsen. "We weren't that concerned because they were just trying to be touchy-feely, and the boys kind of told them 'no.' "
Ashley Countryman said that two "Mexican guys" -- she didn't know their names -- were hanging out around Apartment 19 and offered her and Dani some beer. "We were all out front mingling," Ashley said, adding that she didn't like beer and turned them down. But Dani accepted at least two beers from the men, and one of them seemed to be "checking her out," her sister said. Later that night Dani told Ashley "she was interested in one of the Mexicans."
The party included a total of about 20 people, including other residents of the apartment complex and their guests. At one point, Dani and several others were in Apartment 21 watching "The Chronicles of Narnia."
The last time Ashley saw her sister alive, it was about 5:30 a.m., when Dani asked her sister for a cigarette. Ashley then went upstairs to Sprayberry's apartment and expected that Dani would sleep in Apartment 21, she said.
The next time Ashley saw Dani, sometime before 8:30 a.m., the teenager was lying on the floor of Apartment 21, covered by a blanket. Ashley tried to rouse her sister only to discover that Dani was dead and badly bruised on her upper neck and chest.
Dani's friends and family were at a loss to explain what happened.
The court paperwork made public Tuesday provides a possible explanation but leaves unanswered questions, such how Dani could have been killed in one apartment and then found in another without those sleeping inside hearing or seeing anything sinister.
According to Detective Dan Kraus, one of the Clackamas County Sheriff's Office lead investigators, this is the account provided by the suspects:
Arellano Gamboa said Dani Countryman knocked on his door, entered the apartment and started kissing him. He ended up on top of her, and they both had their pants down. He said he wanted to have sex with her but did not recall if he did.
Rivera Gamboa said he was asleep on a couch when his cousin awakened him. "The girl had been struggling" and Arellano Gamboa asked his cousin "for help," Kraus said in his report. Rivera Gamboa "admitted that he held her down with his foot on her throat until she stopped moving," Kraus said.
Dani was described as 5 feet tall and weighing 95 pounds. Rivera Gamboa is 5-foot-10 and weighs 180, according to Oregon motor-vehicle records.
The Oregon State Police crime lab found blood on one of Rivera Gamboa's shoes and a "pattern on the shoe was consistent with imprint" on Dani Countryman's chest.
Sprayberry had lived in the apartments a couple of weeks but said the cousins seemed to be clean-cut and hard-working guys.
"They didn't have the crazy dog look to them, but you can never tell these days," said Sprayberry, who was interviewed at the Clackamas County jail. He was arrested last week on a probation violation.
Tragic story involving a naive American girl and illegal Mexican aliens. My sympathy for the victim is mitigated by the fact that she was interested in one of the Mexicans. I know she's young, but I knew better 5 years younger than her.
Sad...but my momma would warn us that that’s what happens to “white trash.”
Big “Thank yous” go out to President Bush and our beloved Congress on maintaining our immigrations standards as well as they have.
LLS
I think big sister needed to keep better track of little sister’s actions and where abouts. 15 is too young to be at an unsupervised party with adults present.
Re: Arellano Gamboa asked his cousin “for help,” Kraus said in his report. Rivera Gamboa “admitted that he held her down with his foot on her throat until she stopped moving,”
That is some kind of “help”
More blood on Bush’s hands. No other way to state it.
Hmmm...You'd think the adults in charge of the Federal government would know better than to allow, and even encourage tens of millions of these people into our country.
ping
No thanks to big sister and the parents or our country’s leaders.
Alejandro "Alex" and Javier "Gabe" Gamboa
Can't agree there. Reagan had every reason to believe he was making a compromise with a Democrat congress which would effectively achieve his ends, stopping illegal immigration. Like TEFRA.
If RWR can be faulted in any way it was his underestimating the utter dishonesty and crass opportunism of his political opponents.
Neither the 'toon nor Bush II can claim such motive.
Smoking their cigs, scratching their tattoos
Excerpt:
Gamboa lived next door to the apartment in which her body was found on the morning of July 28, and one floor below Rick Sprayberry, the current boyfriend of Dani's sister. Ashley was one of several people who said she saw the cousins drop into the party, paw some of the girls, ply her sister with beer.
Which no one, apparently, considered cause for concern.
Not Ashley, who brought her 17-month-old baby to the party and is dating a guy whose criminal record includes 2005 charges of felony child abuse in Florida (Sprayberry eventually pleaded no contest to domestic battery).
And not Dani, who planned to return to Texas and the sordid orbit of a father who -- according to the Kaufman County DA -- has been arrested 17 times since 1987. In December 2006, the Morning News reported, Dani was with dear ol' dad when he was nailed during a traffic stop. Upon seeing the blue lights, she told police, her father asked her to hide his glass pipe and two rocks of crack cocaine.
I wonder if this had something to do with Dani dropping out of high school two weeks later.
15 year old Dani Countryman
Exactly right. See post #13 for more info about sister and daddy.
Yea...15 year old girl. 24 year old guy. Sister should have knocked some sense into her! This girl made a poor choice, and now she’s dead for it. It’s a shame, but everything in this article makes it sound like it was a tragedy waiting to happen. What kind of person leaves their drunk 15 year old sister with a couple of older dudes she’s never met?
The &#%%ing ‘Rats and ‘Pubs don’t care how many people are killed and murdered by illegal aliens as long as they can get cheap labor and illegal votes to keep them in power.
That picture on the right says it all, senators laughing and conspiring to bring America down.
Every one of these reports should be sent to the low-lifes you just mentioned so they can be flooded with them. Not that it would make them any difference but it might underscore the reason everyone wants the fence, wall, or whatever that can be done to keep this kind of trash out of our country. Any location that is so proud of being a safe haven for the illegal invaders should be sued for everying they are worth.
The kind of sister that takes her baby to a party and has a boyfriend with child abuse charges.
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