Feliciano Valencia-Santiago Accused of Murdering Maria Esther Orozco, Woman Found in Garbage Bag

Feliciano Valencia-Santiago

​SF Weekly told readers about the disturbing and gruesome discovery a Sunnyvale man made in his front yard last Sunday: A garbage bag filled with bloody body parts. Police quickly identified the victim as Maria Esther Orozco, and now they've identified the suspected killer.

Sunnyvale police arrested Feliciano Valencia-Santiago, 47, a Santa Clara resident on suspicion of murdering Orozco. Detectives arrested him at about 7:50 p.m. on Friday as he was riding his bike in the area near El Camino Real and Halford in Santa Clara, according to Captain David Verbrugge.

Valencia-Santiago was arrested and booked in the Santa Clara County Jail.
Detectives said they tracked down many leads over the last week, and concluded that the murder happened at vacated home on the 800 block of Revere Drive in Sunnyvale. The home had been unoccupied since a December 2010 fire, police say.

Verbrugge told SF Weekly that a motive had not been determined, but that Valencia-Santiago definitely knew his victim. "How well, they knew each other, we're not sure," Verbrugge said.

The victim's body was found in the garbage bag last week between two bushes near a home on Ticonderoga Drive. The man living at the home called police to report what looked like a body lying in a partially closed garbage bag. When police arrived, they found blood on the bag.

When they looked inside, they saw the body of Orozco, 46, a resident of San Jose. She died of head trauma, according to the Santa Clara County Coroner's Office.

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