OREM — Less than 24 hours after Christopher Poulson admitted to killing Emily Quijano Almiron and her son Gabriel, Orem police and FBI officials described what led to his confession while family of the mother and son focused on forgiveness.
Orem Police Chief Gary Giles said Wednesday morning that now that Poulson has admitted to killing the two between Sept. 8-9 in 2015, part of his plea bargain includes an agreement to help police find their bodies.
After nearly four painful years of mystery surrounding the disappearances of the 23-year-old mother and her 3-year-old son, family members of the two young victims now have a chance of laying them to rest.
Almiron's mother, Brenda Marsh, and Gabriel's grandmother, Maria Almiron, expressed their gratitude to investigators. In light of her own family's tragedy, Marsh offered sympathy for Poulson's relatives.
"Although most of my family has never met the Poulson family," she said fighting back tears, "our hearts have broken for them."
Marsh added that she's forgiven Poulson and is "grateful" for his confession in hopes that it will lead to recovering the bodies of her daughter and grandson.
"We are concerned about Chris, and we hold no animosity toward him," she said.
She was especially fond of the officers, special agents and attorneys, who bonded with her family after a long day of investigating to mourn, pray, cry and laugh together.
"They have spent time away from their families to serve ours," she said. "They have loved us and we love them."
Marsh also thanked her own parents for teaching her about the gospel of Jesus Christ, which prepared her for this trial in her life.
Maria Almiron, speaking in Spanish through an interpreter, cried as she thanked police and the FBI for their work on case.
"It's been four hard years," Almiron said.
After speaking, the two women sat by each other and embraced.
Following Tuesday's plea hearing, prosecutor Lance Bastian said Poulson led authorities last week to a stretch of desert near Utah County.
"At this point, we have still not recovered the bodies of Gabe and Emily. We are in the process of looking and do have information, which we will not be getting into detail right now," he said, adding that it's been a stressful and emotional case for his officers.
"It's one that we have known from very early on that there was something wrong," he said. "We never thought that she had just run off."
Almiron and Gabriel were last seen in September 2015, when Almiron's ex-husband reported them missing. Almiron's home and belongings were abandoned, and her red Toyota Prius was later found, with the windows open and the keys inside, in a southern Utah parking lot where Poulson later admitted he had left it.
In Tuesday's hearing, Poulson, who had been living with Almiron, admitted that he had been using meth and drinking alcohol for several days when he babysat 3-year-old Gabriel and "severely" injured the boy. He put the child to bed before Almiron returned home and went to sleep, then later checked on him to find he had died. In a panic, Poulson then shot Almiron with a handgun while she slept.
Investigators did not initially focus on Poulson, of Smithfield, but came to believe he was lying to them. He was later arrested in Hawaii, where prosecutors say he moved after FBI investigators spoke to him about the case.
When Poulson was initially interviewed by investigators, he claimed Almiron had left and he did not know where she was, according to Giles. But over time, evidence began to point back at him.
"As those puzzle pieces came together, we started to get a better picture of what was going on," he said.
Bastian said investigators believe Poulson's general account of what occurred, as it matches some of their theories and doesn't contradict evidence in the case.
He said as the investigation continued, evidence began to surface through forensic analysis, financial records, phone records, and comparing Poulson's statements to statements other people were making.
"It became clear that he was not being forthright about what had taken place," he said.
Original charges against Poulson included two counts of aggravated murder. Poulson pleaded guilty to one count of murder, a first-degree felony, and manslaughter, a second-degree felony, plus 28 counts of obstructing justice. Under the terms of the plea agreement, he faces at least 16 years and up to life in prison. He is scheduled to be sentenced Sept. 26.
"If nothing else happens to intervene between now and Sept. 26, that is the plea on which he will be sentenced," Bastian said.
Whether or not the bodies are found before that day could affect the sentence Poulson receives.
If the bodies are found, Bastian said prosecutors and Poulson's defense attorney will go back to court and Poulson will have an opportunity to withdraw his plea, then plead guilty to slightly lesser offenses. However, 4th District Judge Robert Lunnen said Tuesday he would not commit to honoring the deal ahead of time.
“The reason we did that (is) because we in good faith need to put forth an effort to help us find them and hopefully that is going to yield fruit,” Bastian said.
Bastian said "significantly more evidence" than usual was presented during Poulson's preliminary hearing in order to send him a message — if he did choose to go to trial, "it was not going to go his way."
Bastian said work on the case is not done. He and Giles noted Wednesday searchers might request the help of the public if efforts to recover the bodies aren't successful.
Currently, officials would like to keep the undisclosed area "as pristine as possible" while they send out search dogs, or trained individuals to find and recover any remains, Bastian said.
"I assure you, efforts are not going to stop,” he said. “We're going to keep working. And we're going to keep looking.”