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Juan Gastelum Jr., 32, was sentenced on April 28, 2026, to an indeterminate prison term of at least 244 months, just over 20 years, and a maximum of life after pleading guilty to second-degree murder with sexual motivation in the death of his ex-girlfriend, Yanira Cedillos.

Cedillos, 30, lived in Moses Lake, Washington, and was the mother of three children. Gastelum, 27 at the time of her disappearance, was a former Moses Lake resident living in Hermiston, Oregon. They had lived together, but their romantic relationship ended before March 2022. On the night of March 3, 2022, Cedillos celebrated her birthday with friends at Papa's Casino in Moses Lake. Police said Gastelum called, texted and messaged her dozens of times that night. Detectives determined that he picked her up somewhere in the 900 block of North Stratford Road and took her to her apartment at the Heron Creek Apartments.

Moses Lake police Capt. Mike Williams said the last evidence that Cedillos was alive came a few minutes after midnight. Detectives found evidence that she had been killed in the apartment and her body moved afterward. At about 7:30 a.m. on March 4, video caught Gastelum cleaning out his car and disposing of evidence at a local gas station. Detectives later recovered that evidence. Her family reported her missing that Friday after she failed to show up for work. The Moses Lake Police Department led the investigation with help from several agencies, including the FBI.

Police interviewed Gastelum on the afternoon of March 5, 2022, the day after Cedillos was reported missing and four days before his arrest, while she was still being treated as a missing person. Before his arrest, he told Moses Lake officers he had picked her up near a Petco on North Stratford Road, that she was drunk and angry at a friend, and that he drove her to her apartment. In the interview, he also discussed earlier fights, saying she scratched him and he would push her off him or hit her back.

Hermiston police arrested Gastelum on the evening of Wednesday, March 9, 2022. He was held in the Umatilla County Jail in Oregon on charges of second-degree murder and second-degree rape; Cedillos' body had not been found. On May 12, 2022, detectives received updated data showing his cell phone had been in a remote area off Highway 12 just outside Wallula Junction, in Walla Walla County, for several minutes the morning she was reported missing. A search that evening found a body in a sleeping bag covered with tree limbs and leaves. An autopsy at the Spokane County Medical Examiner's office on May 16, 2022, confirmed it was Cedillos.

Gastelum fought extradition until Washington Gov. Jay Inslee issued an extradition warrant. He waived extradition on May 25, 2022, and was taken to the Grant County Jail the next day. He pleaded not guilty in June 2022. A trial set for May 10, 2023, was postponed, and the case remained pending in October 2025, when his defense asked the court to dismiss the rape charge. On March 3, 2026, in Grant County Superior Court, he changed his plea to guilty of second-degree murder with sexual motivation.

Under Washington law, that offense carries an indeterminate sentence: after the minimum term is served, a state review board decides whether he is released. The sexual motivation finding raised the standard range for the minimum term from 10 to 19 years to 12 to 20 years. Two days after sentencing, Gastelum was moved from the Grant County Jail to the Washington Corrections Center in Shelton, the state's intake prison for men.

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Part 2 of 2 of the recording described above.