Neighbors react to re-arrest of man accused in brutal murder of 2 boys

PHOENIX - In 2008, the discovery of two boys, ages 7 and 10, bludgeoned to death stunned a Tolleson neighborhood and parents across the Valley.

Then in 2010, neighbors were stunned once more when a County Superior Court judge ruled the man accused of their heinous deaths would not stand trial.

Thirty-nine-year-old Joe Sauceda Gallegos was found mentally ill and admitted to a mental hospital.

Sharon Bonilla was among a group of neighbors walking to the park in December of 2008 and discovered Edwin Pellecier Jr. and Jesse Ramirez bloodied and lying in the sand near Elwood and 93rd Avenue.

Bonilla gasped and broke into tears when she heard Gallegos was now found to be competent to stand trial and re-arrested at the state hospital.

"I'm just so happy, I couldn't believe someone could get away with that," Bonilla said Friday. "Those little boys lost their lives and they were so young."

Those moments when she came across Edwin and Jesse are still very vivid for Bonilla, almost as if time has not passed.

"They were so swollen ... we thought they had got shot, but they didn't get shot and I remember seeing a man when we were walking, I remember seeing him," Bonilla sobbed.

Gallegos was caught on a neighbor's home surveillance camera walking with the bat police later said was used to beat the two boys to death.

"I think about them all the time, I try to think about them running and  playing. I try not to think about how they were," cried Bonilla, who said even though she never met the two boys, she feels bonded with them in those last moments they spent on earth.

Gallegos was booked into the Maricopa County Jail and is being held without bond.

A Maricopa County Attorney told the judge at Gallegos' initial appearance hearing that for now prosecutors will seek the death penalty as they did in 2008.