The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office filed a notice of intent this week to seek the death penalty against the man accused of killing Mercedes Vega.
Sencere Hayes was arrested in connection with the murder of 22-year-old Vega, who was found in a burning car off Interstate 10 near Tonopah in 2023.
The notice of intent filed this week states that the state “does intend to seek the death penalty if the defendant is convicted of First Degree Murder.”
The court document cites numerous aggravating factors and evidence. Read the full notice of intent here.
Among those factors is the claim that Hayes “committed the offense to prevent Mercedes Vega's cooperation with an official law enforcement investigation, to prevent her testimony in a court proceeding or in retaliation for her cooperation with an official law enforcement investigation.”
Mercedes was the victim of an armed robbery in Phoenix years before her murder.
Erika Pillsbury, Vega's mother, said she remembers rushing to her daughter's side after the robbery. Pillsbury tells ABC15 that it prompted her daughter's move to her Tempe apartment. Before she was killed, Vega picked suspect, Cudjoe Young, out of a line-up and wrote a victim's impact statement.
ABC15 has reported Young's former athletic profiles list his hometown as Chattanooga, Tennessee. According to court documents, that is the same city where Hayes was living when he was arrested.
Young is not charged in Vega's death, and the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office stated the 28-year-old was out of custody but on an ankle monitor when Vega was murdered.
Hayes faces four counts of first-degree murder, one count of vehicle theft, one count of armed robbery, and one count of kidnapping involving a death.
MCSO previously told ABC15 they expect more arrests to come.
Vega's parents, Tom and Erika Pillsbury, provided the following statement to ABC15:
Anyone who knows us knows that we’ve been waiting for a long time for any justice in Mercedes' case, and we are so grateful that the state has decided to make her a priority and make sure that she receives the justice that she so deserves.
My wife and I feel like there’s been a weight lifted off of our shoulders and now we can put our trust in the justice system. And now we know that we’re not the only ones fighting for her.
We are grateful to the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office, Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, and the state of Arizona.
We’re not giving up on this and will continue to get justice for her - because she mattered. She matters so much and we miss her so much. We don’t like the fact that someone needs to die in order for my daughter to receive justice, but we can’t deny the fact that his crime warrants this decision made by the state of Arizona. And we’re grateful the justice will happen.
We thank everyone for all the prayers and the kind words and the time that they’ve taken to recognize our daughter and to make sure she wasn’t forgotten. We feel like we can step back and let investigators do their jobs and prosecutors do their jobs. We don’t have to fight so hard anymore. We feel like she finally matters, so the people who can do something about it, and it’s a huge relief to us. We’re regaining faith in the system.
See previous coverage of the Mercedes Vega case in the video player above.
