Man Enters Plea To The Most Heinous Crime In Alexander County History

Perhaps the most heinous crime in Alexander history reached another stage during a special session of Alexander County Superior Court on Monday.

37-year-old Areli Aguirre-Avilez agreed to a plea death with the State of North Carolina to three-counts of voluntary manslaughter. He was given a sentence of 71 to 98 months in prison which is the time served since he was arrested in June, 2020 by the Alexander County Sheriff’s Office.

Aguirre-Avilez and his reported girlfriend, then 16-year-old Heidi Darlene Wolfe, of Wilkesboro, were charged with the murder of Maria Calderon Martinez and her two children 11-year-old Angel Pacheco and his 13-year-old sister America Pacheco. The children’s bodies were found in a burned mobile home in Northern Alexander County. The body of Martinez was found in a burned pickup truck in Grayson County, Virginia months later. The bodies of Juan Carlos Mendez-Pena and Luis Fernando Sanchez wee also found in the truck. It is reported that Maria Calderon Martinez was killed in Alexander County and taken to Virginia.

The day of arrest, then Sheriff Chris Bowman, called the incident a “mass murder” and related how this was the most difficult case for him to deal with in his over 40 years of law enforcement experience.

After the duo was charged, Wolfe told investigators that she ran over Martinez (thinking at the time, it was one of the children) on the orders of her boyfriend , Areli Aguirre-Avilez. She said they dumped the body in the Catawba River in Southern Alexander County. Multiple searches were conducted in the waters that border Alexander and Catawba Counties.

As the investigation continued, investigators came to believe that what Wolfe was telling them was “not adding up” and the water-searches were halted. Sheriff Bowman said weeks later, that it was his belief that the children’s mother was with two men identified as Juan Carlos Mendez-Pena and Luis Fernando Sanchez. Mendez-Pena was said to be in a relationship with Martinez after she had ended a relationship with Areli Aguirre-Avilez. A domestic violence protection order indicated the Aguirre-Avilez had threatened to kill his ex-girlfriend.

Charges against Wolfe are still pending and according to her court-appointed attorney Joel Harbinson of Taylorsville, she remains free on bond and is living with her father in Wilkes County.

What’s next ? Areli Aguirre-Avilez will be released from the Alexander County Detention Center and turned over to the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Shortly after the arrest in 2019, a detainer was placed on Aguirre-Avilez.