A Georgia man stabbed a 19-year-old woman in the back and drove around in a panic before dumping her body in a wooded area of Flowery Branch, according to testimony Friday, August 19, in Gwinnett County Magistrate Court.
49-year-old Timothy Krueger Sr. appeared in court with defense attorney Scott Drake for charges of felony murder and aggravated assault in the June 16 death of Sarai Llanos Gomez.
Gomez’s body was found June 20 in a wooded area of Paradise Point Road in Flowery Branch after a homeowner smelled a strong odor in the neighborhood.
Gwinnett County Police Cpl. John Jorstad said Gomez was a female escort, who used a separate number advertising her services.
With phone records, Jorstad said they were able to determine that Krueger’s number communicated with Gomez’s number more than 70 times between June 10 and June 16.
When interviewed by police after his Aug. 4 arrest, Krueger said he did not know Gomez’s name and was expecting a different woman to show up at his house that night. Krueger told police he thought the woman he was communicating with and Gomez “were trying to play some kind of trick on him,” Jorstad testified.
Jorstad said there was a language barrier between them during a disagreement, as Krueger thought he was being swindled.
At one point, Gomez became fearful and grabbed a kitchen knife from the knife block, Jorstad said.
“He said he just remembered kind of tussling with her, grabbing the knife from her and then she turned to walk away, at which point he stabbed her in the back,” Jorstad said.
Gomez fell to the ground, and Krueger “stated he just wanted it to be over, so he stabbed her a few more times and then he cut her throat,” Jorstad said.
“When my client was talking about the stabbing, did he indicate that he was acting in self defense?” Drake asked
“It did not seem that he was acting in self defense,” Jorstad said. “He said that she had turned her back to him and was walking away.”
Krueger told law enforcement he was in a panic and started driving, ending up in the Flowery Branch area, Jorstad testified.
Jorstad spent most of the hearing laying out the police work that led to Krueger being identified as a suspect.
A Ring motion-activated camera on the outside of a barn depicted a gray Infiniti SUV back up to the woodline around 7:30 a.m. June 16 on Paradise Point Road, Jorstad said.
A White man is seen on the footage getting out, walking toward the barn and looking at the camera before returning to the Infiniti’s trunk.
“You then see him … dragging something through the woods, and then you hear a big loud crash,” Jorstad testified.
Roughly a half hour later, the Ring camera cuts on again because of the car leaving the scene.
With the help of some dealerships, investigators learned the suspect’s vehicle was a 2020-2021 Infiniti QX50.
Jorstad said investigators then performed a search for all vehicles matching the color, model and year registered to White men in Hall, Gwinnett and Forsyth counties.
Meanwhile, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation latent print examiner got information from the Homeland Security database, as the federal agency was investigating Gomez’s disappearance as a missing person case.
Jorstad said Gomez was on a work visa from Ecuador.
The fingerprints in the database matched the body found in the woods, Jorstad said.
With Gomez’s cellphone information, investigators determined her last known location was the Cardinal Lake Drive area of Duluth.
Only one Infiniti QX50 on the investigators’ list, Krueger’s car, came back to that area of Duluth.
When investigators got Krueger’s cellphone data, his phone was seen hovering in the same area as Gomez’s phone around the same time.
Gomez’s phone went dark around 10 a.m. June 16 and stopped communicating with cell towers.
Days later, Gomez was found completely naked in the woods, and it appeared that animals had eaten parts of her, Jorstad testified.
Drake did not bring any witnesses nor did he offer any arguments.
Magistrate Court Judge Anna Pearce bound the charges over to Superior Court.
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