Hugo Luna Aguero

An Arizona truck driver has admitted that he attacked a female passenger and then left her bleeding in a ditch outside Thermopolis in April 2018.

At a hearing in Hot Springs County District Court last month, Hugo A. Luna Aguero, 46, pleaded guilty to a felony count of attempted second-degree murder.

Luna’s plea came as part of a deal with the Hot Springs County Attorney’s Office, in which he agreed to serve a 20- to 30-year prison sentence for the crime.

In exchange, prosecutors dismissed a separate count of kidnapping and reduced the original charge of attempted first-degree (or premeditated) murder to second-degree (alleging he acted “purposely and maliciously, but without premeditation”).

A sentencing hearing is set for July 22 in Thermopolis. District Court Judge Bobbi Overfield will formally decide at that time whether to approve the agreement, but it’s extremely rare for a judge to throw out a negotiated sentence.

At his change of plea hearing in May, Luna testified that he’d gotten upset with the woman who’d been riding with him, the Thermopolis Independent Record reported. Luna said he pushed the woman to the ground and “used a box cutter to cut a deep gash in the side of her neck,” the Independent Record reported.

“... Luna said he had never done anything like this in his life, and that he did it without premeditation or the intent to kill her, though he knew cutting her neck could be fatal,” the newspaper reported.

The woman reportedly woke up in a ditch along Wyo. Highway 120, north of Thermopolis, and then flagged down a passing vehicle. Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation Special Agent Brady Patrick said the woman had cuts to her face and neck, plus ligature marks and hemorrhaging in her eye that indicated she’d been strangled.

The woman told DCI that she’d agreed to travel with Luna in exchange for a couple hundred dollars. However, she said he’d stolen her phone and cash and increasingly limited her contact with the outside world on the trip; she also reported seeing blood on the mattress in his tractor-trailer.

Early on April 13, 2018, the woman said Luna stopped so she could go to the bathroom along the highway, then strangled her unconscious.

After the woman was found, law enforcement agencies across the state quickly began looking for Luna and his tractor-trailer. About an hour later, Wyoming Highway Patrol Lt. Lee Pence spotted Luna’s truck on South Clark Street in Powell; Powell police, who’d separately received a tip about the truck, assisted in taking Luna into custody.

At the time, Luna told the troopers and officers that he hadn’t had a woman with him that day, but they found the woman’s purse in Luna’s truck and noticed blood on his shoe and sleeves. DCI also reportedly found a couple cloth items with apparent blood on them underneath the mattress in Luna’s truck.

Luna has been held in jail with bail set at $500,000 since his arrest. He asked Judge Overfield to lower his bond to “a realistic amount” in late November, but she has left that amount in place.

Luna had been set for a roughly eight-day trial on the allegations, but he signed the plea agreement with Hot Springs County prosecutors on May 8.