Colorado Man Guilty of SEXUAL ABUSE at Super 8 Hotel, Sentenced to Life After VICTIM’s OVERDOSE

Thursday, a 49-year-old Colorado man accused of sexual abuse against a Super 8 hotel cleaner returned a guilty verdict by an APottawattamie County jury. On August 1 Jesse William Smith is sentenced to life in prison without any chance of parole.

After Natalia Victoria Manriquez Sepulveda, 35, was discovered dead at the hotel on 24th Street and Interstate 80 on Sept. 7, 2023, by the Council Bluffs Police Department, Smith was convicted of third-degree sexual abuse. Pottawattamie County Attorney Matt Wilber reported in a press release Sepulveda passed from an accidental fentanyl overdose.

Sepulveda was dying; Wilber noted, “Smith sexually assaulted her and then locked the door to the room behind him and left the hotel.” Sepulveda was discovered by police many hours after her death. Wilber wrote Smith had nothing to do with her overdose.

“This is an American tragedy in itself and this case reminds us all to be very wary of this extremely potent and deadly drug,” Wilber said in a statement. “Natalia put herself in a sadly vulnerable position and I am so sad that the defendant victimized her before she passed.”

One week after Sepulveda passed, law officers detained Smith at a Council Bluffs duplex. From public comments and surveillance footage, law officials noted Smith as a subject of interest.

Smith was under parole in Colorado at the time of his arrest. Colorado law enforcement agents issued several arrest warrants against Smith for failing to register as a sex offender and violating parole. He came in second on the state’s most wanted sex offenders list in August 2023.

A 2021 Denver police video claims that Smith has a significant criminal record, including three sexual assault convictions from 1999, 2003, and 2006 among other offenses. Two of the convictions dealt with children.

Investigators from Council Bluffs thought Smith had been hiding charges in Colorado by using an alias in the Omaha-Council Bluffs metro region for years.

Wilber contacted his office asking Smith’s felony sex abuse sentence to be raised to life in prison considering his Colorado criminal record.