A Mobile County judge found enough evidence Friday to send capital murder and corpse abuse counts toward a grand jury in the deaths of a mother and her two children.
MOBILE, AL — Prosecutors said Friday that the attack that killed a Theodore mother and her two children included signs of sexual assault, as a judge ruled there was enough evidence to move the case against Hector Gamaliel Argueta-Guerra toward grand jury review.
Friday’s hearing added some of the starkest details yet in a case that has shaken south Alabama since Aurelia Choc and her children vanished from their home in late January. Mobile County District Attorney Keith Blackwood said the evidence points to a planned, deeply violent attack, and Judge Jill Phillips found probable cause to let multiple capital murder and abuse of a corpse charges continue. Prosecutors also have said they intend to seek the death penalty if the case moves forward to trial.
Investigators have built the case in stages over nearly three months. Authorities first treated the matter as a disappearance after Choc and her children were reported missing from their Ben Hamilton Road home in Theodore at the end of January. Friends and co-workers became worried when Choc did not show up, and a neighbor later entered the house through an unlocked window and found what appeared to be blood inside. Deputies later said there were no signs of forced entry, but they found blood in several parts of the home, along with personal items that suggested the family had not simply left on their own. The teen’s belongings, including identification and cash, were still there. A mattress and other bedding items were missing. As the search widened, investigators said surveillance footage showed a black van making repeated trips to and from the home overnight, a pattern that soon became central to the case.
By early February, authorities had arrested Argueta-Guerra on kidnapping charges after linking him to the van and to the family’s disappearance. Detectives later testified that blood found in the house matched Niurka Zuleta Choc, the teenage daughter. Cellphone data, investigators said, traced the defendant’s movements from the Theodore home to several later locations and eventually to a remote area off Downing Road near Summerdale in Baldwin County. In March, search teams returned to that area with cadaver dogs and found three bodies buried in a shallow grave. Prosecutors say the victims were Aurelia Choc, Niurka Zuleta Choc and 2-year-old Anthony Garcia Choc. Court records and hearing testimony said the bodies had been wrapped in plastic and bedding, buried together and badly burned. Investigators have said they still have not found the murder weapon, and they have not publicly answered the full sequence of events inside the home or said exactly when each victim died.
Friday’s hearing focused on what Detective Michael Pozobyt said the evidence showed about the killings themselves. He testified that Aurelia Choc had been stabbed and that the toddler suffered trauma to his skull. The most graphic testimony centered on Niurka, whom family and friends also called Zule. Pozobyt said she had been stabbed eight times in the neck and throat. He said she was found naked, with a plastic bag over her head and a sock in her throat. Outside court, Blackwood said those facts support an argument that she was sexually assaulted. He said the case was one of the most disturbing his office has seen in the area. Prosecutors also argued that the killings were not random. Testimony described a prior connection between the defendant and the teen through another juvenile and that child’s family, a detail the state says may help explain why this household was targeted. Even so, investigators have said a clear public motive remains unknown.
The case has unfolded through a series of hearings that steadily raised the stakes. In March, before the bodies were found and formally tied to the case, a judge ruled there was enough evidence to send kidnapping counts to a grand jury. After the grave was discovered in Baldwin County, prosecutors upgraded the case to capital murder. The charging package now includes counts alleging murder during kidnapping and during burglary, as well as counts tied to the deaths of two or more people and the killing of a child younger than 14. Argueta-Guerra also faces abuse of a corpse charges and an obstruction of justice count tied to allegations that he gave a false identity to law enforcement. He has pleaded not guilty through counsel, and he has been held without bond in the Mobile Metro Jail. Prosecutors have said they will pursue the death penalty, a step that puts the case on Alabama’s most serious criminal track.
The killings have left a lasting mark in Theodore, where neighbors had watched the case shift from a missing-family search to a homicide investigation and then to allegations of extreme violence. A small memorial outside the family home has grown with flowers, stuffed animals and a family photo. Neighbors have spoken of ordinary moments that now feel haunted, especially memories of the youngest child playing outside. In court, the most dramatic details came from investigators and prosecutors, but the emotional weight of the case has also come from its setting: a family home with no forced entry, blood left in several rooms, phones and cash abandoned, and weeks of uncertainty before deputies found the grave in Baldwin County. Those details have made the case feel both intimate and brutal, even before a jury hears it.
For now, the case remains in its pretrial phase. Friday’s ruling means prosecutors can continue presenting the charges to a grand jury, which will decide whether to indict on the capital murder and related counts. Investigators still have major gaps to fill, including the precise weapon used, the exact timeline of the killings and whether additional forensic testing could answer questions about sexual assault and the order of deaths. The next major milestone is grand jury action, with any indictment expected to determine how quickly the case moves toward arraignment and later trial settings.
Author note: Last updated April 18, 2026.