4th arrest made following man's 'brutal murder' at North Phoenix park
PHOENIX - Court documents we obtained show a 4th person has been arrested in connection with an incident that Phoenix described as the "brutal murder" of a man at a park.
According to the paperwork, 21-year-old Christopher Ibarra was arrested in Phoenix on the afternoon of Dec. 4. The victim in the murder, identified as 30-year-old Bernardo Pantaleon, was found dead in the area of 7th Avenue and Cinnabar on Nov. 26, and investigators said Pantaleon's body was "mutilated, postmortem."
Investigators said an online profile used by Ibarra was in a chat that was set up with regard to Pantaleon's murder.
"Post-Miranda warnings, the defendant admitted to knowing a codefendant, the shooter, was planning to kill the victim the day prior. He did not do anything about it, and admitted it was wrong to not say anything," read a portion of the court documents. "He admitted they discussed the murder, when, where and how it would be done, and videos and photographs were passed around."
While Ibarra, according to police, admitted to receiving photographs from the shooting suspect, he denied sending the photos to members of Pantaleon's family. We previously reported that family members received two photographs via a social media site, one of which showed a person flipping their middle finger, and the other showing the victim's mutilated body.
Ibarra's arrest came after the arrest of three people in connection with Pantaleon's death. The three were identified as 21-year-old Manuel Carrasco Calderon, 20-year-old Jose David Rodriguez, and 21-year-old Leonardo Santiago, and they are accused of a variety of criminal offenses, including murder, assisting a criminal street gang, and crimes against a dead person.
Court documents state that Ibarra is accused of premeditated first degree murder and assisting a criminal street gang, both of which are felonies. A judge has set a cash-only $2 million bond for Ibarra, and his preliminary hearing is scheduled for Dec. 14.