Details Emerge About Murder of Marine and Young Bride

Beautiful, young military couple brutally murdered by husband's fellow Marines in October 

By Mirna Alfonso and Peter Surowski

Graphic details in the murder of Sgt. Janek Pawel Pietrzak, 24, and his 26-year-old wife, Quiana Faye Jenkins-Pietrzak are coming to light.
On April 3 the first day of a two day preliminary hearing took place to determine if four Camp Pendleton Marines will be ordered to stand trial for the robbery-murders of the USMC sergeant and his wife, who was also sexually assaulted.
The suspects, Pvt. Kevin Darnell Cox, 21, Lance Cpl. Emrys Justin John, 19, Lance Cpl. Tyrone Miller, 21, and Lance Cpl. Kesaun Sykes, 21, sat surrounded by their attorneys watching the proceedings with faces like statues, without reaction or emotions. The four were stationed with Pietrzak at Camp Pendleton.
Those who knew and loved the Pietrzak’s had a different reaction.
During the hearing, Daniel DeLimon, a prosecutor with the district attorney, used a projector to show the court photos of the crime scene. Also, Benjamin Ramirez, a homicide investigator with the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department, gave a detailed account of everything he found during his investigation.
When Ramirez began to talk about the evidence for sexual abuse he found at the crime scene, several women put tissues over their face. A man covered his face with his hand.
Judith Clark, the judge, interrupted Ramirez and told the photojournalists, “Do not take pictures of the people in the seats,” because they were the victims’ family members.
After the testimony, two women stood on the third story of the Southwest Justice Center in Murrieta staring silently out the window.
The skin around their eyes was wet and red. The corners of tissues peeked from the fists at the ends of their folded arms.
“We’re not supposed to talk about it,” one of the women said softly in response to a question.
But investigators are talking about it and the details are disturbing.
The Pietrzak’s bodies were found Oct. 15 in the family room of their two-story home at 31319 Bermuda Ave. in Winchester, a community just east of Temecula.
Authorities conducted a welfare check when employers of both victims notified sheriff’s deputies that the husband and wife had failed to show up for work. Sheriff’s Investigator James Campos said he attended Quiana Pietrzak’s autopsy the following day. She had been shot in the right temple. The bullet exited through the left temple and also in the back of the neck, with the bullet passing through the neck.
Red duct tape that had been wrapped over a black cloth on her eyes was still in place when the body was removed from its sheath at the coroner’s office, Campos said, adding that another piece of tape was hanging around her neck.
According to Campos, the pathologist who performed the autopsy told him that the temple wound would have been fatal.
The bullet to the neck, which appeared to have been fired at close range, would not have been fatal in and of itself, Campos said he was told.
Campos said that Janek Pietrzak was shot three times--in the right cheek, the back of the head and the left ear. He said the pathologist told him that the right cheek wound and the back of the head wound were fatal.
During the morning session, Detective Benjamin Ramirez testified that deputies checking the two-story home found both bodies in the living room, with Quiana Pietrzak propped up with her legs out in a “V’’ formation, her head resting on the sofa behind her.
Then Janek Pietrzak was found with his head resting on his wife’s leg.
Both victims had red duct tape around their heads and their hands had been bound. Janek’s ankles had also been bound, the detective said.
Pillows through which guns had been fired were found in the living room, he said. Upstairs, investigators found an empty duct tape spool, a pair of “SpongeBob SquarePants’’ boxer shorts and a blue nightgown with the straps cut, Ramirez said.
On a bathroom mirror and a wall upstairs, someone had spray-painted a racial epithet, according to testimony and photos shown at the hearing. The Pietrzaks were an interracial couple. The four defendants are all black. The motivation behind painting the epithets is still unclear.
Burn marks were found on the floors and carpeting, where the intruders had set fires.
At Miller’s Camp Pendleton residence, Ramirez said, investigators found the female victim’s Visa check card, a sergeant’s military dress uniform adorned with the same kind of medals her husband had been awarded, and a bracelet engraved with the couple’s names and some other Polish words.
Investigators also found five pistols and about five long guns--both rifles and shotguns--at Miller’s home, Ramirez said, as well as four bandanas and one pair of mechanic’s gloves in a black backpack.
Pietrzak worked out of Camp Pendleton, like the defendants, and his wife worked for the Riverside County Department of Public Health. The two had married the previous August.
According to a declaration filed by sheriff’s investigator Gary LeClair in support of an arrest warrant, the defendants admitted going to the couple’s home to rob them, and Miller ``further admitted that he forced entry into the residence by pointing a shotgun at Janek Pietrzak.’’
Miller fingered John as the alleged shooter, according to LeClair.
Investigators found shoes in Cox’s Ford Taurus with a tread that matched an impression left at the crime scene, Campos testified.
Investigators alleged earlier that property that came from the Pietrzak home was found in Sykes’ possession.
Pietrzak, moved from Poland when he was 8 and grew up in Brooklyn. He was part of the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing at the base near Oceanside and had served in Iraq from July 2005 to February 2006.
According to a Camp Pendleton spokesman, Cox and Miller worked in the sergeant’s squadron, and John worked in the same aircraft group as Pietrzak, Cox and Miller. Sykes worked in the First Marine Division as an administrative clerk.
The estimated two-day preliminary hearing at the Southwest Justice Center is expected to conclude on May 8.
The district attorney’s office plans to seek the death penalty for the men if they are convicted.