WICHITA, Kan. – Sedgwick County District Attorney Marc Bennett announced Wednesday that Juan Valenzuela-Silva, 21, of Wichita, has been charged with
- Capital murder of his father, Juan Valenzuela-Ayala, mother, Brenda Valenzuela-Silva, and sister, Daisy Valenzuela.
- Aggravated Endangering a Child
The charges were filed Wednesday in Sedgwick County District Court. Valenzuela-Silva is being held in the Sedgwick County Adult Detention Center on a bond of $100,000,000.
On Sept. 26 at 11:29 a.m., Sedgwick County Emergency Communications received an open-line 911 call. The caller initially did not respond to dispatchers but shortly afterward reported that people had been shot at a residence in the 5000 block of East Blake Street.
Wichita police officers responded to the home, where they found three people who had been shot: 49-year-old Juan Valenzuela-Ayala, 40-year-old Brenda Silva-Cervantes and 25-year-old Daisy Valenzuela. Three others inside the home, a 17-year-old male, a 17-year-old female and a 2-year-old female, were not injured.
The preliminary investigation identified Juan Valenzuela-Silva as the suspect and determined he had left the residence in a 2014 Infiniti QX60.
Investigators entered the vehicle information into the FLOCK Automated License Plate Reader (ALPR) system and received information indicating the vehicle was traveling south out of the Wichita area possibly toward Oklahoma.
Once investigators verified the suspect and vehicle information, WPD released it to the public, along with an image of the vehicle captured by the FLOCK system earlier that day before the shooting.
WPD also quickly coordinated with regional law enforcement partners. Through WPD's three-agency partnership with the Kansas Highway Patrol and Sedgwick County Sheriff's Office, the Kansas Highway Patrol Air Support Unit was notified and launched to assist in locating the vehicle. WPD also shared information with the Cowley County Sheriff's Office, Butler County Sheriff's Office, Oklahoma Highway Patrol and Kay County Sheriff's Office in Oklahoma.
Additional FLOCK alerts later indicated the vehicle was now traveling toward Butler County. A Butler County sheriff's deputy located the vehicle, and, with assistance from the Kansas Highway Patrol Air Support Unit, deputies conducted a traffic stop south of Augusta.
Valenzuela-Silva was taken into custody without incident and transferred to the custody of the Wichita Police Department.
The count of Capital Murder charged in this case is defined in Kansas Statutes Annotated (K.S.A.), 21-5401(a)(6) as, the “intentional and premeditated killing of more than one person as a part of the same act or transaction or in two or more acts or transactions connected together or constituting parts of a common scheme or course of conduct;”
The penalty for Capital Murder is defined in K.S.A. 21-6617(a). Summarized, a person convicted of capital murder faces a sentence of either life in prison without the possibility of parole or the death penalty. No decision has yet been made whether to seek the death penalty in this matter.
In Kansas, Capital Murder is defined K.S.A. 21-5401(a) murder can be charged as Capital Murder only under the following circumstances:
(1) the “intentional and premeditated killing of any person in the commission of kidnapping, . . . when the kidnapping or aggravated kidnapping was committed with the intent to hold such person for ransom”; (2) the “intentional and premeditated killing of any person pursuant to a contract or agreement to kill such person”; (3) the “intentional and premeditated killing of any person by an inmate or prisoner confined” in a correctional institution; (4) the “intentional and premeditated killing” of the victim of certain sex crimes; (5) the “intentional and premeditated killing of a law enforcement officer”; (6) the “intentional and premeditated killing of more than one person”; (7) the “intentional and premeditated killing of a child under the age of 14 in the commission of kidnapping . . . when the kidnapping or aggravated kidnapping was committed with intent to commit a sex offense upon or with the child”; and (8) or with intent that the child commit or submit to a sex offense.
Every defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law.
Because this is a pending case, the District Attorney's Office will not make further statements beyond what is contained in public court filings.