Nearly three years after Portage resident Ingrid VanEck’s body was found in a suitcase floating in Deep River in Lake Station, her former roommates have been charged in the murder.

Monica Hicks, 45, of 5082 Exeter in Portage, and Jesus Baca Sanchez, 46, of Deming, N.M., have each been charged with murder, conspiracy to commit murder, and assisting a criminal.

On May 2, 2005, Portage Police were contacted by VanEck’s father, concerned that he had not heard from his daughter in several weeks and that her roommate, Hicks, had told him that VanEck had gone to California to get a car. VanEck’s father advised the PPD that he didn’t believe Hicks. Hicks, meanwhile, filed a missing persons report later the same day.

Five days later, on May 7, VanEck’s body was found stuffed inside a suitcase floating in Deep River in Lake Station, a plastic bag tied around her neck. An autopsy subsequently determined that VanEck had died of blunt force trauma of an unknown origin to the head and chest.

According to a probable cause affidavit filed by Det. Dennis Wilkins of the PPD, Hicks and Sanchez were almost immediately suspects in the murder, and in fact in August 2006 Sanchez told the PPD that he knew who killed VanEck, that he had helped dispose of her body, and that he would assist police in solving the murder. But, Wilkins stated in his affidavit, Sanchez later refused to cooperate and fled the area in July 2007.

On Oct. 1, 2007, Sanchez was taken into custody in Pima County, Ariz., on an unrelated car theft warrant filed by Porter County, and Wilkins and Porter County Prosecutor Investigator Bob Taylor went to Arizona to interview Sanchez.

There Sanchez advised Wilkins and Taylor that Hicks was angry at VanEck for her plans to sell a car which Hicks thought rightfully belonged to her own son and to use the proceeds from the sale to buy drugs. Hicks and he discussed killing VanEck for two days but arrived at no particular plan, Sanchez advised.

Then, on April 21, 2005, after he, Hicks, and VanEck had been consuming cocaine, marijuana, and whiskey, Hicks struck VanEck five to six times with a hammer, Sanchez advised Wilkins and Taylor. He himself then took the hammer and delivered a strong final blow to VanEck’s head, instructing Hicks to find a plastic bag to place over the head to contain the bleeding, Sanchez advised.

Murder is punishable by 30 to 60 years in prison. Conspiracy to commit murder is a Class A felony punishable by 20 to 50 years in prison. Assisting a criminal is a Class C felony punishable by two to eight years in prison.

Posted 1/17/2008