Hearing held for Alfredo Castellanos-Rosales, man accused of murder of Dakota Dunes

UNION COUNTY, SD (KTIV) – A motions hearing was held Friday, October 4, 2024 in Union County, South Dakota as the murder case against Alfredo Castellanos-Rosales continues.

At a 9 a.m. hearing Friday, the state called a former colleague of Castellanos-Rosales to the witness stand to discuss a conversation they shared a week before Jordan Beardshear’s murder.

Castellanos-Rosales is charged with first-degree murder in the April 25, 2023 death of Beardshear, who was found dead in her Dakota Dunes apartment on April 26, 2023. Her infant son, whom she shared with Castellanos- Rosales, has not been found. inside the apartment and was reported missing.

The co-worker, who worked at Tyson Foods in Dakota City with Castellanos-Rosales, said they talked frequently at work but were not friends outside of their shifts at Tyson Foods. Through an interpreter, Armando Sanchez said Castellanos-Rosales talked about problems he had with Beardshear and seemed “sad” and “upset” when talking about her.

Sánchez was questioned by investigators after Castellanos-Rosales, arrested in Mexico weeks after the killing, failed to show up for work.

Another motion filed by the state examined cell phone data collected by investigators on Castellanos-Rosales’ cell phone, Beardshear’s cell phone and the cell phone of Castellanos-Rosales’ wife, Reyna Castellanos.

Reyna Castellanos faces her own charges in the killing, pleading not guilty to two counts of complicity in a crime and other charges.

On the witness stand in Union County Court on Friday, two South Dakota Department of Criminal Investigation agents testified about cellphone data obtained with and without a search warrant in the hours after the body was found by Beardshear.

Investigators “pinged” Castellanos-Rosales’ cell phone before obtaining a search warrant to try to locate him and the child he shared with Beardshear.

“We have a missing child,” South Dakota DCI Agent Matthew Glenn recalled of the early hours of the investigation. Investigators often search cell phone data before issuing a formal search warrant in cases where time is of the essence, such as the disappearance of a child.

Investigators already considered Castellanos-Rosales, the child’s father, as a possible suspect. The first “ping” from his cell phone came around 11:30 a.m. the morning Beardshear’s body was discovered, with the last “ping” coming at 1:33 p.m. before the phone, investigators say, was turned off.

“There was a reasonable belief that (Castellanos-Rosales) did not want to be found by law enforcement,” Glenn said.

Authorities would later obtain the search warrant for the cellphone data of Castellanos-Rosales, his wife Reyna Castellanos, and Beardshear, who arrived just after 5 p.m. on April 26, 2023.

“The infant’s last known location was with Jordan in his apartment,” DCI agent Jon Basche said on the witness stand. “We learned that (Castellanos-Rosales) had planned to pick up (the child) the night before.”

Authorities’ priority, according to both investigators, was to locate Beardshear’s son. They were discussing activating an Amber Alert when cellphone data helped authorities find the missing baby, who they said had been dropped off at her grandmother’s house on the night of April 25, 2023, by Castellanos- Rosales.

Investigators quickly noticed that Beardshear’s cell phone was not in her apartment where she was murdered. His cell phone was discovered shortly after midnight on April 27, 2023, in a wooded area of War Eagle Park in Sioux City.

Basche said a search of Beardshear’s phone showed Castellanos-Rosales texted her “here” at 8:52 p.m. on April 25, 2023. Two minutes later, at 8:54 p.m., he called her . This phone call lasted 12 seconds.

At 8:56 p.m., authorities said Beardshear’s cell phone received a call through an app from a program that guests at his apartment complex use to access the building.

Beardshear’s cell was locked at 8:56 p.m. and was never unlocked again until authorities unlocked it for their investigation.

On her cell phone, investigators also found a photo Beardshear took of herself in a mirror at 6 p.m. the evening of her murder. In this photo, according to investigators, she was wearing the same clothes as at the time of her assassination. Investigators also discovered that Beardshear sent a Snapchat to someone containing a screenshot of a conversation she had with Castellanos-Rosales in which she included the text “this is the BS I have to face it” in the snap.

Castellanos-Rosales’ cell phone was located near Beardshear’s apartment between 8:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. on April 25. Cell phone data also shows that Castellanos-Rosales was near the same location as Beardshear’s phone. The two DCI investigators also testified about the map data they had compiled from the three cell phones. More data will likely be revealed during the trial.

Castellanos-Rosales is scheduled to go to trial in February 2025. Castellanos-Rosales is charged with first-degree murder, contributing to child neglect and child abuse. He has pleaded not guilty to these charges. An arrest warrant for Castellanos-Rosales was issued on April 27. He was apprehended in Mexico on May 12 and returned to South Dakota on June 8.