BROCKTON — A Guatemalan man whose remains were found last week in a cardboard box in Duxbury had a 14-inch incision bisecting his abdomen that may have been made to empty the contents of his stomach, prosecutors said Monday. The remains of Estuardo Leonel Melgar Perez, 44, were found in a box in the South Shore town of Duxbury on July 27. Maguire disclosed information about the remains during an arraignment in Brockton District Court for Jose Milthon Freddy Azurdia-Montenegro, 55, a Guatemalan national who is charged with witness intimidation related to accusations that he misled police investigating his countryman’s death. State Police met Azurdia-Montenegro at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York as he was trying to board a plane to Honduras early Saturday; he voluntarily returned to Massachusetts for questioning, Maguire said. Both Melgar Perez and Azurdia-Montenegro were scheduled to leave the U.S. this past Saturday on the same flight to Honduras, authorities said. He said Azurdia-Montenegro and Melgar Perez arrived in the United States separately and traveled here to buy cars and ship them home.
– Massachusetts police have made an arrest in the case of an alleged drug mule whose body was reportedly cut open to retrieve smuggled drugs, WCVB reports. Eight days ago, residents of Duxbury, Mass., found a box giving off a strong smell—and inside discovered a man whose torso had been cut open with a 14-inch incision. Reports suggest that the man, Estuardo Perez of Guatemala, had been a drug mule. Now prosecutors have charged another Guatemalan, Jose Azurdia-Montenegro, 55, with misleading a police investigation into the case. Using a local resident's cellphone records, investigators tracked Azurdia-Montenegro and stopped him before he could board a flight at JFK Airport on Saturday, an assistant DA tells the Boston Globe. Azurdia-Montenegro initially said he'd just met the victim, but his attorney now says the two were visiting the US to buy cars for resale in Guatemala, the Boston Herald reports. Yet Azurdia-Montenegro insists he knows nothing of the murder, and authorities say a third man may be involved. Grim detail: The incision on Perez's body was a "careful cut to the stomach, presumably to access the contents of the stomach," says the assistant DA.