One of the people accused of murdering an 83-year-old Wheaton woman and then burning her body to cover up a check fraud scheme has a history of writing bad checks, court documents show.
On Nov. 26, Jose Alvarado, his wife, Ana Lilian Rodas, and his cousin Ramon Alvarado allegedly beat Lila Meizell to death in her home, then spread gasoline on her body and lighted a match, Montgomery County police said in court documents.
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Jose Alvarado, 37, had done yard work for Meizell, and she paid him for the labor with a $75 check on Nov. 19. But before cashing it, authorities said, Alvarado added two zeroes and withdrew the $7,500 from his account as soon as the check cleared.
This isn’t the first time Alvarado has been accused of using checks to steal.
Last year, he was charged with passing a bad check valued at more than $500 to a Montgomery County business. But those charges were dropped in March after Alvarado paid the business back, said Montgomery County state’s attorney spokesman Seth Zucker.
After defrauding Meizell, police said in court documents, Alvarado met with Rodas, 32, and Ramon Alvarado, 32, and told them what he’d done. Ramon Alvarado responded with an offer to kill Meizell for $1,200, and Rodas suggested they burn down Meizell’s house, on the 10500 block of Inwood Avenue, to hide the evidence, prosecutors said.
On Thanksgiving Eve, the three drove a Dodge minivan to Wheaton and parked it down the street from Meizell’s house. Meizell was on the phone with a friend when Jose Alvarado knocked on the door and asked for $43 that Meizell owed him from another landscaping job.
After she handed him a check, Ramon Alvarado grabbed her throat and, he later admitted to police, “slammed Meizell’s head into various pieces of furniture,” court records said. When Ramon Alvarado lighted the match, he also ignited his own legs and arms.
Meizell asked her friend to stay on the phone while she wrote the check, telling him she was concerned about her landscaper. When he lost the connection, the friend had his son call police.
Prosecutors said Rodas and the Alvarados confessed. All three are being held without bail.
