A Habersham County Superior Court judge has denied bond for the suspect accused of murdering a Cornelia woman last month.
Angel Rivera-Sanchez is charged in the death of 25-year-old Minelys Rodriguez-Ramirez. The accused went before a judge on Wednesday, Nov. 20, and his attorneys tried to get him released on house arrest. Mountain Judicial Circuit Court Judge Russell “Rusty” Smith ruled against that request based on information indicating the suspect was attempting to flee the country before he was taken into custody.
Rodriguez-Ramirez was shot
At Wednesday’s bond hearing, Rivera-Sanchez appeared in court virtually from the Habersham County Detention Center.
During the proceeding, the prosecution outlined the case against him, citing two possible scenarios for how the young mother of one died. In one scenario, Rivera-Sanchez and Rodriguez-Ramirez struggled over a gun, and it discharged. The second scenario centered on the possibility that someone else shot her.
“The defense lawyer is the one who said Mr. Rivera-Sanchez claims he did not shoot Ms. Rodriguez and that he saw someone else shoot her,” Staples told Now Habersham in an email Wednesday. “…Mr. Rivera-Sanchez told GBI Ms. Rodriguez had been wounded by a gunshot while they were struggling over a pistol and that he thereafter shot her, too, in his version of events, to end her suffering.”
Defense attorney Gustavo Corzo and Public Defender Jeanne Tiger represented Rivera-Sanchez in court.
Corzo raised concerns about Rodriguez-Ramirez’s TikTok presence and her OnlyFans account. The defense also claimed there was another person relevant to the case that Rivera-Sanchez could identify if he saw him, but he did not know the person.
Corzo recommended Rivera-Sanchez be placed on house arrest with an ankle bracelet in Hall County. The victim’s family strongly opposed that.
Timeline of events
Known as “Mimi” by family and friends, Rodriguez-Ramirez was a fitness enthusiast and mother of a 9-year-old daughter. She disappeared during a trip to Walmart in Cornelia on Oct. 22. Her family reported her missing the following day.
Six days later, on Oct. 28, agents with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) arrested Rivera-Sanchez in Atlanta and charged him with murder. They returned him to Habersham County and booked him at the county jail. The next day, on Oct. 29, authorities found Rodriguez-Ramirez’s remains. She was located in the woods off Furniture Drive – which runs parallel to the Cornelia Walmart. The Department of Natural Resources was called to assist in retrieving her body.
New details emerge
The GBI Medical Examiner’s Office performed an autopsy, but the family says they have not been provided with any details. Carmen Ramirez expressed frustration over learning for the first time in court that her daughter had been shot.
“We had not been told anything about the autopsy or the cause of death,” she said. “They just keep saying it’s an open investigation.”
Ramirez spoke at Wednesday’s hearing along with Rodriguez-Ramirez’s older sister, Kelly Triumph, of New York. Both asked the court to deny the alleged killer’s bond.
“Nobody has the choice to kill anybody or to be in a place where somebody is killing somebody and do nothing,” said Ramirez.
Triumph spoke of the toll her sister’s death has had on the family, especially her young daughter.
“While we were in Puerto Rico taking her remains, we spent the night with her daughter, and she will not sleep, crying for her mother,” she said. “Like my mom, I do not think that this individual should be let out of jail on bail. Because even if he didn’t pull the trigger, he admitted that he saw who did it, and he did nothing to help her.”
Rivera-Sanchez’s immigration status has been a topic of heated political and community debate. Judge Smith said that while a person cannot be denied bond based solely on their immigration status, information that Rivera-Sanchez was attempting to leave the state, if not the country, at the time of his arrest made him a potential flight risk. Judge Smith denied the bond and ordered the 24-year-old construction worker to remain in custody at the Habersham County Detention Center.
Questions remain
In addition to their frustration over the lack of details about her death, Rodriguez-Ramirez’s family has expressed concern over how the initial investigation was handled. The Habersham County Sheriff’s Office did not immediately request assistance from the GBI. The state’s top investigative agency was brought in on Oct. 25, two days after Rodriguez-Ramirez was reported missing.
“Initially, we had a missing person case, which we routinely handle on our own,” Habersham County Sheriff Joey Terrell told Now Habersham. “When we realized that the data involved started moving faster than we could extrapolate it, they [the GBI] reached out to us and we discussed ways they could help us in the investigation.”
That investigation, according to authorities, remains active and ongoing. Because of that, ADA Staples told Now Habersham he could not provide more specific information regarding the circumstances surrounding Rodriguez-Ramirez’s death.
“The autopsy has been performed by the State Crime Lab, but the report is not completed, and I have not been briefed on the findings,” he said. Staples added that his briefing from law enforcement did not relay “any other information from the defendant about where the offense occurred or how many times Ms. Rodriguez was shot. For those reasons, I cannot answer your questions about the number of wounds or where they were inflicted.”
Investigators are asking anyone with information about this case to contact them. The GBI phone tip line is 1-800-597-8477, and tips may also be submitted through the GBI’s online tip line.
GBI Director of Public Affairs Nelly Miles says once the investigation is complete, the case will be handed over to the Mountain Judicial Circuit District Attorney’s Office for prosecution.
