Alyssa Otremba Murder: Where is Javier Righetti Now? – Alyssa requested permission from her mother to walk to a friend’s house to borrow a textbook on Friday, September 2, 2011, the Friday before Labor Day weekend. Jennifer, Alyssa’s mother, was concerned, but Alyssa said she needed it to complete her homework. When Jennifer said “yes,” Alyssa texted her at 6:38 to let her know she’d be home by 7 o’clock. Alyssa wasn’t home after a half-hour had elapsed. Jennifer began calling everyone she knew and enquiring whether Alyssa had been heard from. The finding of Alyssa’s body stunned her because the victim had been raped, then brutally burned and dismembered.
“On the Case With Paula Zahn: In the Shadows of Home” episode on Investigation Discovery has methodically and comprehensively detailed every aspect of this case. If you’re curious about what happened to Alyssa Otremba that evening and who killed her, keep reading below.
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Who Was Alyssa Otremba and How Did She Die?
Alyssa Page Otremba, who was 15 then, was raised as a military child alongside her two sisters, Megan and Hayden, by her parents, Scott and Jennifer Otremba. She had just ended her first week as a freshman and was a sophomore at Arbor View High School. She apparently missed school that day because she was sick on September 2, 2011.
She wanted to go over to a friend named Cody to borrow his book because she needed the geometry book to finish her homework. Initially skeptical, her mother eventually agreed, and Alyssa even texted her to let her know she would be home by seven o’clock. Her final text to her mother described how she was on her way home, and her phone’s battery was running low.
But her family began to worry when she still hadn’t arrived home after 30 minutes. Around ten o’clock that evening, her mother called the police, and her family started looking for Alyssa. The police found her body inside a tunnel the following day, just 100 yards from her home. She was naked from the waist down and had many stab wounds and symptoms of blunt force trauma.
According to police accounts, she had been stabbed more than 80 times in the face and torso. The attack was so severe that the knife bent, and a part of it became lodged in the victim’s head.
Who Killed Alyssa Otremba and Why?
According to the blood trail left at the scene, Alyssa was fairly close to her house when she was kidnapped and slain. Investigators hypothesized that she might have been forced into the tunnel after being grabbed from behind, raped, stabbed, and burned. When Cody was questioned, he said he told Alyssa he wouldn’t be at home that evening.
He was eliminated as a suspect once the claim was verified. The case was becoming unsolved since the DNA samples taken at the scene did not match anything in CODIS. The police decided to make some case information public while establishing a hotline and asking for assistance.
Finally, the police were able to apprehend the attacker thanks to a tip from an 18-year-old woman named Elizabeth Morales. Elizabeth claimed to the police that evening she had gone on a date with her lover, Danny.
Danny received almost 50 calls from his best friend, Javier Righetti. Danny finally left to help him. He allegedly told Elizabeth before departing that he believed his friend had killed someone. Danny initially refused to cooperate when the police interrogated him, but when he became terrified of being accused of the murder, he opened up. According to what he told the police, he took Javier to a petrol station and lent him money so that Javier could fill a gas can. He then drove him back to the crime scene, but as he had already left, he had not seen anything.
The police had a suspect, and they knew that the attacker had returned to burn the body. When the detectives and a SWAT squad proceeded to arrest Javier Righetti, who was 19 at the time, he confessed to raping and killing Alyssa. Additionally, he allegedly admitted to carving the initials “LV” into her body before setting it on fire.
According to police files, he reportedly admitted to three other rapes, including two that occurred in the same tunnel where he attacked Alyssa. It was also found that Javier had a warrant out for his arrest for raping his cousin a month before this occurrence.
WHat Happened to Javier Righetti and Where Is He Now?
In February 2017, Jarvis entered a plea of guilty to 10 counts, including first-degree kidnapping, murder with a deadly weapon, and sexual assault on a minor. Except for the first-degree murder plea agreement that was rejected by both the lower court and the Nevada Supreme Court, all nine of his pleas were upheld.
A judge determined Javier to be mentally capable of receiving the death penalty on February 23, 2017. After almost three hours of discussion, the Eighth Judicial District Court of Nevada sentenced Javier to death on March 21, 2017. Javier, who is 24 years old, is the youngest person ever to be executed in Nevada.
Several of Javier’s other victims gave testimony at his sentencing. According to the evidence, Javier had increased his crimes after each. In his remarks to the court, Javier said: “I look around and see how many people I’ve hurt and failed, I am not here to beg for mercy or for anyone to have pity on me. I am here to ask everyone [to forgive] what my mistakes have caused, which is pain and a lot of suffering. Alyssa should still be here, but she’s not because of me. … I truly am sorry for this entire tragedy.”
The Otremba family welcomed the sentencing, and Jennifer said, “He didn’t consider her life. We’ve been fighting for justice for her.” According to court documents, Javier is currently detained at the Ely State Prison in solitary confinement for 23 hours each day.
