A man who was extradited to the United States from Peru pleaded not guilty Wednesday in connection with his wife’s killing in Lancaster.
Jossimar Cabrera Cornejo, 37, is charged with murdering his wife, Sheylla Cabrera, 33, on Aug. 10 at the apartment she shared with him and their three children, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office.
She was reported missing two days later.
Investigators subsequently “discovered additional video surveillance of the missing person’s husband dragging a large object in a large piece of material from the apartment complex in the 500 block of Lancaster Boulevard, where the missing person, her husband and three young sons lived,” according to a statement released by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.
Investigators were also contacted by the Montrose Mountain Search and Rescue Team, which reported it had spotted an object similar to the material that was seen being taken away by the person of interest over the side of an embankment in the Angeles National Forest, according to the sheriff’s department.
Authorities said the material contained the woman’s body and that she was pronounced dead at the scene.
The woman — who the Los Angeles Times reported was also known as Sheylla Lisbet Gutierrez Rosillo — died from multiple stab wounds, according to the county medical examiner’s office.
Investigators learned that the woman’s husband had already fled the United States.
The children were also reported missing, but they were subsequently located safe in Peru, authorities said.
He was arrested in Peru in late August and returned to the United States last December. He remains behind bars in lieu of just over $2 million bail.
Cornejo is due back in a Lancaster courtroom July 9. A date is scheduled to be set then for a hearing to determine whether there is enough evidence to allow the case against him to proceed to trial.
If convicted as charged, he could face a maximum of 26 years to life in state prison, according to the District Attorney’s Office.