The day he was killed, Gilberto Sotelo returned home with his family at dawn, tired but happy because he would report to a new construction job.
Hours before having to attend that job, the vehicle in which the family was traveling – Gilberto, his wife, and seven children, all minors – ran out of gasoline on Highway 215 very close to Riverside.
Gilberto managed to park the Chevy Silverado on the shoulder of the road and asked his wife, Myra, that the family remain inside the vehicle for safety. He only went down.
When Gilberto, 38 years old, was in charge of refueling the vehicle, another driver passed at speed and without stopping ran over the father of the family; the hit-and-run left Sotelo’s body about 30 feet from the Silverado, Gilberto’s brother, Jesus Sotelo, said.
That same morning on August 7, a Bexar County Sheriff’s deputy in San Antonio, Texas, who was vacationing at the home of relatives in Southern California, was returning from a night of drinking aboard a vehicle that requested lent to their relatives, to go out and get to know the area.
Sheriff’s deputy Giovanni Ceja, 31, drove on Highway 215 toward Riverside and as he passed near the junction with Highway 91, he struck Gilberto Sotelo and fled.
Mrs. Myra managed to see the vehicle in which Ceja accelerated to get away from the place where, with the impact, she had just killed her husband.
The California Highway Patrol (CHP) found body parts from the car that Ceja drove at the scene of the incident, and, with the description provided by Ms. Myra, the agency was later able to identify the vehicle and confirm that he was involved. .
By then, Ceja had fled not only from the crime scene, but also from California, but the relatives of the Texan sheriff’s agent gave the fugitive’s information.
CHP detectives provided details of their investigation to Riverside County Sheriff Chad Blanco, who contacted his colleague in Bexar County, Texas, Javier Salazar.
According to the Bexar sheriff, Ceja returned to work from vacation on Monday, Aug. 14, uniformed and casual as if nothing had happened.
Salazar confirmed that he ordered Ceja’s arrest on a detainer request for extradition to California. Ceja has been a sheriff’s deputy at the county jail for five years.
The San Antonio sheriff’s chief reported that he had sent the arrested Ceja to a nearby county jail so as not to lock him up in the same prison where he had worked as a guard until now.
Salazar said that Ceja’s attitude, of pretending that nothing had happened, was “disgusting.”
“They changed him, they put him under arrest. And then I asked him if he would rather resign or put me through having to fire him? He was accepted and has now been dishonorably discharged from the sheriff’s office,” Salazar said via video posted to social media this week.
Ceja awaits to be extradited to California.
A niece of Gilberto Sotelo who organized a fundraiser for her uncle’s funeral, Verónica Sotelo, was the first to comment on Ceja’s arrest.
“Now justice will be done for the death of my uncle. The suspect has now been found and is already in custody. Thank you all for sharing and spreading the word. We couldn’t have found it without you,” the niece wrote.
But while Gilberto Sotelo’s relatives wait for justice in Riverside County, they have had other bitter moments to go through.
They ask for help
Gilberto and Myra Sotelo’s family lived in Lynwood and with seven young children, they recently decided to move to the Lake Elsinore area. When asked, the couple said they were motivated to get away from the crime they felt was on the rise in South Los Angeles.
When a drunken Ceja ran over Sotelo, his wife decided to stay inside the vehicle to comfort their children and prevent them from getting out of the Silverado to get closer to their father. She boarded she called the 911 emergency number. However, when the paramedics and authorities arrived, someone had stolen his wallet with IDs and his cell phone from Sotelo’s clothes.
In addition, the early morning that he was run over, Gilberto Sotelo was returning from visiting the grave of his sister, Rocío, who also died in a car accident along with her husband.
In the fundraising campaign on GoFundMe it has been mentioned that Gilberto will be buried next to the remains of his sister in the Resurrection Cemetery in Rosemead, in Los Angeles County.
Help the Sotelo family
To make a donation you can visit: https://gofund.me/e55d9c20