Marmolejo’s Stepsister, Ex-Girlfriend Says He Admitted Killing Mom; Offers Details Of Murder, Cleanup

One of the central figures in the David Marmolejo murder trial took the stand for the first time on Wednesday morning and made a dramatic accusation.

Mariah Wilson, David’s stepsister and one-time girlfriend, was asked questions about the day David’s mom, Gloria Marmolejo disappeared and said David told her he killed his mother. David has been charged with his mother’s July 2009 homicide.

On the way back to Gloria’s East Side home after leaving the movies in Northeast, Wilson said David admitted to killing his mother. Wilson, who’s DNA was found at Gloria’s home, is testifying with an immunity agreement. The state will not fill charges if she testifies truthfully.

“He’s telling me he killed his mom,” Wilson said. “You don’t expect someone to say that and go, ‘Oh really?’ He kept saying he did it. He did it. I didn’t believe it at first. It’s David.”

Wilson, testifying under immunity, described what happened that day Gloria disappeared.

When she and David arrived at Gloria’s house, “That’s when he’s telling me his plan, what he’s gonna do…to make it seem like she was leaving for a walk and that she was abducted from there. He’s still insisting he did it and he says, ‘I’m not gonna show you her body.’ I’m thinking, ‘Oh my God. I’m sitting in a room and I know she’s supposed to be here and that he did it.”

They then left the home briefly and drove around nearby neighborhoods that were under construction.

“He takes me to a dumpster and says, ‘That’s where I was gonna put you and Laura at one point.'”

Wilson said she was, “scared to death.”

When they got back to the house, David had Wilson sit on the floor while David explained how he killed his mother.

“He said he did get there to to open door. They started arguing. He punched her in the back of the head. She hit her head on the door as she fell. He blacked out and when he woke up, he had a belt around her neck and one foot on her back and he kept pulling and pulling and pulling,” Wilson said. “He said, ‘she popped on herself.’ He said, when she hit her head on the door, she started bleeding. He put mustard over the blood stains.”

Wilson went on to describe how she and David cleaned up the scene.

“We started cleaning again. He took a screwdiver…cleaned leftover blood spots in the grout. I grabbed the bathroom mats from dryer….we flipped them over and started picking off the rubber that had stains,” Wilson said. “He grabbed one of her (Gloria Marmolejo’s) shoes and smacked her in the head. He said when he was choking her, he had one foot on her back. He wanted a smaller footprint to throw them off.”

Wilson said David used black painter’s plastic to wrap up body and used wire hangers that he unhooked and a belt to hold the plastic together. As he dragged her body to his Altima, a hand falls out and he tucked it back in.

They then took took US 54 to the Anthony Gap to look for a place to dispose of the body.

“We were driving around everywhere…aimlessly,” Wilson said. “When we exited, he was looking for a canal, but everywhere he was afraid somebody would see us. I’m pretty scared we’re gonna get pulled over. I just wanna make him think everything is OK between the two of us.”

At one point they stopped at a gas station and Wilson used David’s cash to pay for gas inside the convenience store. Wilson told the DA she didn’t ask for help then because she was in love with David and didn’t want him to get in trouble.

As they left the desert, David told her to drive really slow.

“He sat on the trunk to fan out the tire trails,” Wilson said.

Wilson said they didn’t talk much on the drive back to Gloria’s house and that she thought she was next.

Back at the house, David tried to lighten the mood.

“He asked for oral (sex), but he wasn’t serious. He laughed and said he was just kidding,” Wilson said.

David and Wilson got into several fights over moving Gloria’s car and those were the phone calls between 5:30 a.m. and 6 a.m. the following day. She said he yelled at her because he thought people had seen him. He also told her he should have worn pants because people would see his prosthetic leg. Wilson also talked about how she and David went from step-siblings to lovers. She said it happened on a trip from Phoenix to El Paso.

“It was on July 5, 2005. He started touching me,” Wilson said.

Wilson said she’s known David since she was 11 and got pregnant by him during her freshman year in high school. She had his baby at 15 and gave the baby boy up for adoption.