Witnesses detail secret relationship at trial

Evidence!!!

Is there ever gonna be any evidence that he killed the man. A murder weapon. Finger prints. Eye witnesses. Something, anything.

So far, all I've heard is evidence that the two had a sexual relationship,
the victim may have been choked to death using a choke hold that police officers are trained to use, and was then mutilated with a knife that the defendant may have owned

I sure hope my ex-wife is never found murdered, 'cause I had sex with her a couple times. If the murderer kills her by shaking her hand, "cause I have been trained to do that. If he then stabs her repeatedly with a screwdriver, I'm going to jail, 'cause I might own one of those.

Is there any real evidence?

Clandestine sexual relationship?

"Come on man. Watch us have sex. I wanna keep this on the down-low."

In my opinion, a police officer likely couldn't be capable of covering up a heat of the moment murder. If Rios was planning this slashing already, I believe he would have taken the necessary steps in keeping his "hands clean".

Someone watched Rios and Valencia having sex? Huh? That is rather shocking but I'm sure not too far reaching.

Could we have less commentary so we can hear the Congressional Hearing on the Auto bailout?

i think the police don't care who killed a gay college man,and since steven rios is easy enough to pin this on we don't have to look into his death. besides can you not hear the talk of his fellow police officers in the locker room after learing about rios gay life style. i can see them setting rios up and i think that what they did.getting rid of two birds with one stone. get rin of steven and don't have to look for the real killer. i believe steven rios is completing innocent.

I can't get past him appearing at the station. I have not seen evidence that this was Rios' normal procedure. Also, the computer search is a big piece for me. Since the timelime is not concrete, as a juror, this would stick in my mind more than any other evidence. Had he stayed at home and also not searched the computer, he would appear alot more credible.

I am thoroughly opposed to the auto bailout. I drive a Chrysler. I am a lung cancer survivor. I needed to extend some of my payments while I was unemployed and going through cancer treatment. A Chrysler employee informed me it was not their fault I got sick and was not their fault I could not work. And they wanted their money now. I was asking them to extend for a week until a check came in. WELL, IT IS NOT MY FAULT THEY ARE HAVING MONEY PROBLEMS AND THEY CAN HANDLE THEM THE SAME WAY I HAD TO. They can sell assets and work to dig themselves out. We should not have to bail out the Corporations of the world that could care less about the little person and will walk on us again.

that is so sad. i give the bestwishes out to her family and all i have to say to her family members is keep your head up because who ever did that to her they got whats coming for them. KEEP THAT IN MIND

If this guy thinks he was smart he was an idiot and the young man lost his young life. Giancanna said three can keep a secret if two are dead. If you have a dirty little secret don't put your business in the street. I never did.

murder i murder....sexual orientation is irrelevant but is the story line unfortunatelys

I believe Rios is guilty and the evidence shows that. He also had the motive. He did not want his lifestyle exposed and had to shut up Valencia.

As I understand it, the prosecution proved a DNA link to Rios from Valencia's body.

There is certainly evidence in this case to make one think Rios is guilty; however, there is also plenty of evidence to cast a reasonable doubt. I think if this jury finds Rios guilty, it is in human error, not as the justice system dictates. After all, Columbia is smack dab in the middle of the bible belt, where people have a hard time getting past the homosexual nature of the case.

It seems to me that Steven Rios was getting more and more dangerous and out of control. He stalks women he has given tickets to, then gays, the moves on to gay threeway sex. Sounds like he didn't think he could get caught. He has that I can do whatever I want attitude.

well i thinkthat the cop is the one who did it.

i believe that we have a few double standards that we live by. for most of our lives we have been told how much of a negativec effect is caused by living with single parents. how hard it is to have a woman play the part of dad, and mom play the part of dad. there is nothing wrong with being gay, no one i know has to worry that one day i will come out to judge them for what they believe.
there should be no reason to convict just because they had a sexual relationship. according to what i have heard there was at least two others who also had that same type of relationship. the fact that Rios is a cop should not be used against him. Judge him for who he is, not what the rules are at his job. So i could not say whether he is guilty or innocent i bilieve the jury should see the facts for what they are, to convict if there is no doubt in their mind. convicting someone is a hard thing to do, especially when all the time they had to clean the blood off, get home to his wife, was under 30 mins.

Steven Rios is definitely innocent, please find him not guilty!!

It seems like the basis of the prosecutions case is that Mr. Rios showed guilt. Could this not be the guilt of a man whose marriage and career were ruined by his same sex relationship with the victim and have nothing to do with the guilt of a murderer. Give me EVIDENCE to overcome Reasonable Doubt.

I believe Rios is unquestionably NOT guilty. Remember Jennifer Cox, Austin, TX. Take college students, late night parties, sexual trysts, possible jealousy issues, drugs, and alcohol – you've got a dangerous mix. Things can go very wrong very quickly. The police jumped on to Rios prematurely and ignored critical evidence. Also, Zevy's testimony being suppressed is a terrible shame. He is OBVIOUSLY hiding something.

I don't know if Steven Rios did this horrible crime or not but I do know that Jessie Valencia was a human being and whatever he did in his private life does not give anyone the right to murder him. He had the right to have sex with whomever he chose so long as they were of age and willing,it doesn't matter if he had one partner one hundred partners it was his business and his life. No one will ever know what Jessie's potential in life was because his life was taken away. I do not know the victim or the defendant but I do know that no one has the right to take another persons life and how we live our lives are no one elses business but our own as long as we aren't hurting anyone else. I feel so bad for the family of the victim and the defendant,this will destroy more than just Jessie and Steven.

The real shame is that in our society if you are gay you are made to believe you are abhorrent. You grow up with self hatred and spend a great deal of your life trying to be something else.... I don’t think Rio’s shame constitutes guilt.... If I found out a person I was having sex with was murdered I would have to wonder would my relationship with them come out?

Big deal, so a married cop who is closeted and lives in perhaps some of the most homophobic part of our country gets outed and tries to commit suicide? Give me a break, 1 out of every 3 teen suicides are commited by gay people. This whole thing smacks of a witch hunt to me. Columbia police didn't want an outed officer on the force so they set him up for the murder to get rid of him without getting busted for violating human rights and firing him for being gay.

Sick, its all just sick

I was present for the entirety of the first trial. There are a number of facts that aren't coming out in the trial, ruled inadmissible as prejudicial. I have friends who were closely involved with the investigation, as witnesses, and although the police department certainly did some bungling (they should have called in the major case squad), I do believe Rios' guilt. The detective I had the most contact with was absolutely sincere and in no way seemed to be out to get Rios. Pointing fingers at one of your own instead of finding some random party kid to pin it on? Come on.

Zev isn't hiding anything. Zev has tourette's syndrome. He's weird, but having met him and talked with him and seen him in action, there is no way he could have choked JEsse into unconsciousness and sliced his throat.

Lynn from NE has the right idea–Rios was a power-tripping out of control cop.

Having worked in the court system back in Illinois I feel that there is not enough physical evidence to convict. There is no eyeball witness that puts him at the scene of the crime. I agree with the path the defense attorney is following. He is casting doubt on the evidence presented. By doing this he is making the jury think that there were other possible suspects who may have had a motive.

If my x- lover was murdered, and I was inocent and a cop, natural curiosity coupled with fear of exposure would motivate me to search for all info available to me even on my day off. The co-workers who have all been asked this question would have no motivation to do so.

I DO NOT believe he is guilty. I have worked in the medical field for a number of years and there is no way to cut through a major artery and not have a drop of blood on you. He had no blood on him, his clothes, his shoes. According to police he would have had 25 mins to leave work where he had been drinking at a the end of a shirft, drive and find Jessie who was out partying , kill him, clean off all blood and drive the uniform or clothes he had on, dispose of the weapon and get home to his wife who testified he looked normal to her. no wet clothes of panicked looks. There was Rios's under his finger nails but there was also the victim's and 1 other person under his fingernails. My person of interest was Jessie's old boyfriend who he dumped for Rios. To me he is more guilty because he has a reason to not like Rios.

he can't find files and he is asking unnessesary question to by time.if he was for-sure innocent we would see a great defense.the defender for ex-cop doesnt sound like he's been updated on what the case is about.he's at a lost.

17 yr.old student

Okay a couple of comments say that those of us in the midwest are homophobes. Please!!! It is in every part of the country. It saddens me that some people think that Mr. Rios is going to be found guilty only because of the gay aspect. And to the person that said guilty only by human error, you are so wrong. The jurors are not idiots!! They are also not from the Bible belt of Missouri. Try Kansas City area. Large city, smart people, exposed to lots of lifestyles. There is also a lot of evidence that I am sure none of us are seeing. Unless you are in that courtroom for every minute, you will not have all the information available.
I saw a couple of the crime photos that were shown on Tuesday. It really didn't appear to be a truly bloody crime scene. If you aren't suspected for days you have time to clean up and dispose of items, like clothing and a knife. I see guilt in Mr. Rios, no remorse for someone he was intimate with for several months. Just an observation.

I cannot believe Mr. Rios was convicted the first time the prosecution case is very weak. They have some secondary DNA limited to the victims hands which an expert stated could have been there for days. The victim should have had the defendants DNA all over him and he didn't. And they cannot say what type of choke hold was used on the victim (besides the military and half the citizens of this country know that choke hold.) And, we have hearsay, regarding the victim threatening to expose Mr. Rios to the police department and his family. Hearsay is not allowed in court. Unless it was witness by several individuals and even than you have to have the ability to refute it and you do not in this case. I do not understand how he was convicted in the first place because the evidence is not there to support a guilty verdict.

He killed the kid out of his own homophobia about himself. Self-hatred was projected out and this kid ended up dead.

I just need to clear this up. Columbia may be "smack dab in the middle of the bible belt", but it is a college town. The populace is surprisingly cosmopolitan, highly educated, and free thinking. Columbia is no more homophobic than any superior big city on the coast. This jury will decide the case based on the evidence presented, not on some deep-seated fear and hatred of gays.

Please, cops do stupid stuff all the time. Keokuk, Iowa had an arson ring, involving the cops. Keokuk cops were developing porno tapes at the police station. How about all the sheriffs that were busted for stealing boats and even burying trash with bodies involving their funeral home businesses. Crooks are crooks. Just because you are a lawyer, a politician, an athlete, a policeman, does not change who your are. The polly-anna's of the world want to think that every cop is good are very crazy. Part of the problem with Rios is his lying about the affair sheds doubt on him being a nice guy who didn't kill someone to cover it up. That is part of reasonable doubt. Ever serve on a jury???? And didn't this guy go to the looney bin after his arrest and act like he was going to commit suicide? One of the things that people don't realize that no matter what the press reports, the jury hears all the mundane details and everything else in the trial. What they hang their hat on may not even be close to what the press reports.

i agree with Eva 110%.

this so called "guilt" Rios has/had is/was nothing short of being outed not only for having an affair, but having an affair with another man. it's a double whammy against him in one of the most conservative areas in our country. and there is entirely way too much corruption in our judicial system to think it isn't a possibility that these conservative officers wouldn't try to cover it up. it sickens me that there is no concern for justice for this boy, his family, and college students, whether gay/lesbian/straight.

this "evidence" and these "witnesses" are horrible. are we disproving a high school rumor or is this a murder case? ridiculous.

We all know the economy is in the toilet, instead of bailing out the huge corporations, auto makers, insurance companies and banks, so they can still have their 340K spa trips and travel in their private jets, the government should pay each taxpayer 10K. As a citizen, who is struggling, I would spend my 10K on credit card debt, mortgage debt, possibly a down payment on a new car, and I can think of numerous others who would do the same, that would jump start the economy much faster than bailing out the big shots, who dont know how to follow a business plan any way. They have already abused our tax money long enough, and there is nobody bailing us out, we are left to struggle with mortgages, debt, medications, food expenses, wouldn't it be nice for someone to say to you, here is 750 billion, have fun.....

You hear all of the testimony about Rios showing up at the station to check the prior calls sometime after the murder. In my opinion, that is not out of the ordinary. I'm a fire fighter in Columbia, Missouri. On many occasions, I have gone to the fire station, on my day off, to check the station computer for the history of fire/EMS calls that I missed while I was enjoying my day off. It's not that un-common. Could it be possible that Rios heard word of a murder in town, either by radio, news, or police scanner, and came to work to check up on the information of the departments call history? If I were a law enforcement officer and I heard word of a murder in my city, I would want to be as educated as possible on the situation and would do so by checking the notes on the depatrment's computer so that I would be better equiped to handle and respond to either that situation or other similar situations in the future. I'm not seeing a whole lot of undisputable information presented by the prosecution to return a guilty verdict.

how could rios have killed valencia and not have left anymore dna than the man who valencia had just had sex with? I have always heard that cutting someone throat that there was blood everywhere,where was the blood on rios?

maybe he was looking for Jesse on the computer because he had not been able to contact him for a couple of days and was worried. I just can't see where he had the time to commit this murder and if he even had a motive. I'm sure if Jesse told him he was going to "out" him if he didn't take care of the ticket and Rios did not want to be outed he would have taken care of the ticket. It is very hard for me to believe that anyone could slash someones throat and not have any blood on them, also the hairs could have come for Jesses clothes he put on after he and Rios where together that he had not washed or even from his bed sheets. I don't know that finding hairs and DNA under the nails of someone that you have been involved with makes you guilty of murder. Also I think Jesses would have put up a fight and Rios is also a small built man he should have a some scratches if DNA was found under the fingernails. Don't forget, Cynthia Summers was also foud guilty of her husbands murder because of her behavior after he died, and later aquitted.

I have great interest in this case for several reasons. I worked alongside LE doing child sexual abuse investigations for 20+ years in two different states. I am gay. I am older and I do retain an interest in such complicated cases because of the mix of sexual orientation, the brutality of the crime, the local medica and neighborhood's role and reactions to the crime, and for one other personal reason.

When I was a young state employee, I had a co worker who was in a bad marriage and who was being abused (physically at times) by her husband. I was in my twenties. My co-worker was in her late forties. It was a small office. My co-worker, I and our supervisor never socialized outside the office. In fact, we lived in three different towns maybe ten to twenty-five miles apart. My co-worker never confided in me but she did in our supervisor, another female. On a Friday afternoon, at the end of the workday, my co-worker agreed to take me to a local body shop to pick up my car – it had just been repaired (dents in one fender). Earlier that week she told me and our supervisor that she was finally divorcing her husband and that she wanted me, our supervisor and the supervisor's husband to go to a concert with her as a way of celebrating her decision to divorce her abusive hiusband. I was wary, as my own life with my gay partner was lived back in my town, not the town where our office was located. I like it that way – simple – very private life – remember this was in the 80's. My co-worker took me to the body shop that night on her way home from work. I immediately drove home to my partner and to a weekend of going to the beach and going to the usual gay bars to dance, etc.

Monday morning – co-worker did not show up at the office. Our supervisor said that in ten yrs of working together with her this had never happened. So, to end this story, our supervisor took another employee to my co-workers apartment. Her front door was ajar. She was found brutally murdered on her LR sofa. I was upset and cried at the office because this co-worker was a kind of mentor to me.

The police named me their primary suspect (I had no prior criminal history – and stellar military and civilian careers to that date) – FOR TWO REASONS:
1. I was the last person to see her and be with her while she was alive/
2. My co-worker had a notepad on her carseat stating "important, pick up concert tickets for me and thomas and Joe and Jane." It took a very bizare three days of interviews to convince the police that I never socialized with my co-worker, and that the tickets to the concert were a "once-in-a-lifetime" thing that my co-worker begged us to do to celebrate her upcoming freedom from her abusive husband.

So, I can well understand being very much a suspect based totally on circumstancial evidence. My sense is that Rios did not kill Jesse Valencia. The charisma of Mr. Valencia shines through in his pictures. It is sad that he was killed.

I do hope the murderer is found and prosecuted.

The socalled DNA evidence only demonstrated that Rios had been to the dead guys house, along with ALL the other 3rd party DNA from hair that was found on the bed.

************************************
UPDATE: The Jury has asked the Judge to send back the Defense Attorney's timeline, the bed sheet from the victim's home with ALL the hair from Defendant, Victim, and numerous 3rd parties; they have also asked for pictures of the murder victim post mortum and the pictures of the defendant that show no marks on him evident of any struggle.

CAN YOU SMELL AN ACQUITTAL????!!!!!!

The timeline doesn't point to murder or not. I keep wondering where is the DNA, clothing fibers, something of the killer on Jessie. Seems if you are struggling you will get fibers transferred. Rios's uniform didn't have a mark on it. In court room demo – parties were all over each other and one of them is not fighting for his life.

Things just don't add up to murder without reasonable doubt.

Judy D

djuan rogers-

Thank goodness you ended your post with "17 yr. old student".

I would have guessed 13.

Necessary.
Buy time, not by time.
If you're innocent, you get a good defense? Ever heard of O.J.?
He's at a loss, not a lost.

A mind is a terrible thing to waste.

about time shes free.