On April 17, 2023, Mercedes Vega, an exotic dancer was found dead in a burning car and more than a year after her murder the police arrested a suspect, a 22-year-old man in Tennessee named Sencere Hayes.
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Vega was last seen on April 16, 2023, walking into her apartment's parking lot. The very next day her body was found in the back seat of a burning Chevy Malibu on an Arizona Interstate, NBC news reports.
On November 11, Hayes was arrested in Tennessee by the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office in connection with Mercedes Vega's murder. He is facing a first-degree murder charge and is now held in Hamilton County.
Based on an NBC report, the sheriff and local prosecutors are trying to get Hayes extradited to Arizona because the crime happened there. No further information is released due to the active status of the case.
What happened to Mercedes Vega?
There isn't much information on the events or motives that led to Vega's murder because the authorities have not released any information as the investigation is still ongoing.
Here's what is available about Mercedes Vega murder case:
Based on the CCTV footage from Vega's apartment complex obtained by NBC News, on April 16, 2023, at 9:15 p.m., Mercedes Vega can be seen walking into her apartment garage, where she had parked her car (a Dodge Charger).
On April 17, 2023, she was found in the backseat of a burning Chevy Malibu on an interstate near Tonopah when the police responded to reports of a car on fire. The autopsy report states that she was beaten, shot, burned, and had bleach on her throat. According to the autopsy review done for NBC News, a forensic pathologist said that her face appeared to have been drenched with bleach.
Vega's mother told Fox 10 that,
We called the detective, and we were like, ‘Explain to us what is going on.’ That’s when he told us that Mercedes was abducted and that she had been hit over the head and forced into a vehicle and that she was shot through her right arm and that she had been burned alive
The family believes that Vega was abducted from her apartment garage because they found blood near where her car was parked. Later on April 18, Vega's car was found on a road about a mile from her apartment. The police could not figure out how it ended up there.
The New York Post reported that Mercedes Vega was a 22-year-old exotic dancer at a strip club in Phoenix, and had aspirations to be a fitness trainer. Before her murder, she was also a victim of armed robbery in October 2020, thus her parents are fighting for justice for their daughter in two different cases, ABC15 reports.
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