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Suspect In Murder Of 14-Year-Old Also Charged With Sexual Assault

COMMERCE CITY, Colo. (CBS4) - The man who confessed to murdering his girlfriend's teenage sister is also being charged with sexual assault.

Ezequiel Padilla-Villalobos, 24, was formally charged in court on Friday. He's accused of murdering 14-year-old Gabriele Acosta.

Along with first-degree murder Padilla-Villalobos is also charged with a count of felony murder and five counts of sexual assault.

He was supposed to pick up Acosta at her mother's house in Broomfield Sunday night and take her to another home to celebrate the holiday, according to the arrest documents.

During that ride in his truck, Padilla-Villalobos says he started having "bad thoughts." He later confessed to having had a least a dozen beers and cocaine in his system when he told police he strangled the teenager and stabbed her five times.

Esequiel Padilla-Villalobos, Gabriela Acosta, Commerce City Murder
Gabriela Acosta (credit: CBS)

Police were first alerted to the case when they say Padilla-Villalobos called 911 from a gas station and said he stabbed a girl and dumped her body along an isolated road.

Acosta's body was found in Commerce City on Monday on Verbena Street, near the intersection with 86th and not far from the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge.

He's being held without bond at Adams County Jail.

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