Potential Mexican drug operatives sentenced for murder, kidnapping in Colorado

Two men who allegedly worked on behalf of a Mexico-based drug trafficking enterprise to seek retribution for a missing truckload of cocaine in Colorado have both been sentenced to 20 years in prison.  

Marco Antonio Guitierrez-Hernandez, 42, was sentenced in Weld County court Jan. 22 to 20 years in the Colorado Department of Corrections. 

Serefino Hermosillo, 38, received the same sentence last October. 

The two men pleaded guilty to murder in the death of a man found near Johnstown in November 2021. Gilbert Junior Gutierrez, then 40, had his hands and feet bound behind his back with rope and a sock stuffed in his mouth, according to details in the arrest affidavit in the case. Gilbert Gutierrez's body was found behind a chicken coop on a lot northeast of the city limits. He had been beaten.

Per accounts gathered by investigators, Gutierrez was killed after coming to the defense of his friend, then-26-year-old Eduardo Avila. Gutierrez pulled a knife after Avila was pistol-whipped by Hermosillo and the gun went off. 

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Following Gutierrez's murder, the two suspects kidnapped Avila. They drove him from the murder scene and released him almost two days - and 200 miles - later, per the affidavit.

The entire incident was apparently a response to a failed attempt to traffick illegal narcotics into Colorado. 

Days earlier, Hermosillo's Chevrolet pickup truck was stolen from the parking lot of a Pueblo hotel. Prosecutors with the 19th Judicial District Attorney's Office told CBS News Colorado that Hermosillo's truck was found later that day. Absent, however, was the load of cocaine Hermosillo was allegedly hauling. 

Law enforcement never determined if the truck actually had cocaine in it. 

Nevertheless, Hermosillo and Gutierrez-Hernandez immediately began phone and text conversations with Avila, and requested a meeting with the intent of settling a debt. The suspects, investigators stated in the affidavit, "believed Eduardo's biological father would provide four million dollars because he had cartel ties in Mexico."

The suspects themselves, investigators were told, were believed to be taking direction from a possible cartel in Mexico.

Guiterrez-Hernandez and Hermosillo tied up Avila and placed a hood over his head, then took him to Guiterrez-Hernandez's residence in Julesburg, per the affidavit. There, a knife was allegedly held to Avila's ear, "threatening to cut his ears off while talking about all the members of Eduardo's family.

"During the time Eduardo was captive," investigators continued in the affidavit, "numerous calls were made to individuals making decisions in regard to what to do with Eduardo. The calls were made by both Marco and the unidentified male" who was later identified as Hermosillo. "The individuals in these calls are believed to be high ranking shot callers within criminal drug trafficking organizations and had a say on whether to kill Eduardo or let him off.

"Eduardo heard them talking about throwing him in a river, but they made a call to someone in Mexico, and that person said not to put him in the river." 

Eventually, the unidentified caller from Mexico realized Avila was "not connected" to his biological father, per the affidavit. 

At that time, Avila's captors allowed him to call his wife. Gutierrez-Hernandez then drove Avila to a gas station and released him. 

Law enforcement, however, was already on the suspect's tail, having started earlier surveillance on Gutierrez-Hernandez's home. Local deputies followed Gutierrez-Hernandez's car to the gas station. Moments later and a short distance away, a multi-agency SWAT team arrested him.

Meanwhile, other deputies approached Avila. His injuries included a bruised eye, lacerations to scalp and blood around his ear. He appeared "scared," they reported.

Hermosillo was captured weeks later in his Texas hometown. 

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Gutierrez-Hernandez and Hermosillo both pleaded guilty to 2nd Degree Murder. Gutierrez-Hernandez - the person believed responsible for the murder of Gilbert Gutierrez - reached a deal with prosecutors the day his trial was to start. 

District Attorney Michael Rourke told CBS News Colorado that his team lost a key part of their effort heading into that trial. 

"We struggled with securing some of the witnesses essential for this prosecution." 

In particular, CBS News Colorado learned, Avila. The kidnapping victim. Avila refused to testify.

Weld investigators never established any official connection between Avila and a Mexican cartel, nor between Gutierrez-Hernandez and Hermosillo and a cartel. But DA Rourke did confirm that Gutierrez-Hernandez and Avila had been under prior surveillance by the Weld County Drug Task Force. 

In fact, Gutierrez-Hernandez, as stated in the affidavit, was "known to multiple law enforcement agencies for drug dealing and known to have set up drug buys and deliveries with Eduardo."

The mention of Mexico-based criminal organizations during the murder and kidnapping, however, were the first time local investigators had any word of potential international involvement, Rourke said. He added the criminal drug organization was "likely" a cartel, though he is unaware of any federal law enforcement pursuing anything from the incident.

Phone calls made to the Denver office of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration on the subject were not returned.

Gilbert Gutierrez, the murder victim, was sentenced to three years in prison for drug and burglary arrests in Larimer County in 2013.

The suspects' plea deals were made with the approval of Gilbert Gutierrez's family, Rourke said.

None of the men were undocumented immigrants at the time of the incidents, Rourke added.