In the summer of 2019, 11-year-old Grecia Daniela Alvarado-Flores, her 5-year-old brother Ever Jose Mejia-Flores, and their 29-year-old mother Rossibeth Flores-Rodriguez were found shot to death in a home on Day Street in Des Moines, Iowa. The family had moved from Honduras earlier that year and were living in the basement of a duplex with another family upstairs.

Investigators arrested 31-year-old Marvin Oswaldo Esquivel Lopez, a Guatemalan national who had prior deportations and a federal conviction for illegal entry; Immigration and Customs Enforcement had an immigration detainer lodged against him. He was charged with three counts of first-degree murder. At an initial court appearance he reportedly suggested through an interpreter that one of the acts was in self-defense; the first trial ended in a mistrial on the counts involving the two children while resulting in a guilty verdict for the mother’s death.

A second trial later resulted in guilty verdicts on all three counts and consecutive life sentences were imposed. Did anyone in the Des Moines community know the family’s situation or see something the night of July 16, 2019?