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Two children were allegedly forced to participate in the torture of Sam Nordquist during his month-long captivity in a small motel in upstate New York before his murder, prosecutors said at a press conference Wednesday. Seven people have been indicted on assorted charges, including murder in the first degree of the transgender man whose body was found dumped in a farmer’s field last month.
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“They physically restrained him, treated him like a dog, covered his face with towels and fabric, used duct tape on him, and poured bleach on him,” Orange County Assistant District Attorney Kelly Wolford said at the press conference.
Precious Arzuaga, 38; Jennifer Quijano, 30; Kyle Sage, 33; Patrick Goodwin, 30; Emily Motyka, 19; Kimberly L. Sochia, 29; and Thomas Eaves, 19, were charged with murder in the first degree, which requires both torturing the victim before the murder and deriving enjoyment from their actions, as well as other charges relating to the crime.
Arzuaga faces additional charges for allegedly coercing the two children, aged 7 and 12, to participate in the torture of Nordquist.
Nordquist traveled willingly from Minnesota to New York on January 2, but the defendants prevented him from leaving. Instead, they kept him captive in room 22 of Patty’s Lodge, a small motel in Canandaigua, where they tortured him for the next month before killing him on or around February 2, prosecutors said.
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While prosecutors did not provide a motive, they did say Nordquist and his accused killers knew each other.
“There are relationships among all of these people,” Wolford said. “They were all known to each other. There are some romantic relationships. There are some familiar relationships. And there are some people that just knew each other from being around the area.”
Wolford went into disturbing detail in describing what Nordquist endured during the last month of his life, allegedly at the hands of the defendants.
“Sam was confined,” Wolford said. “He was forced to kneel and stand against a wall. He was physically assaulted. He was sexually assaulted. He was prevented from using his phone. He was denied proper nutrition and hydration. He was fed feces. He was forced to drink urine and chew spit. They forced him to obey their commands, treating him like a dog. They covered his face with towels and shirts and fabric. They used duct tape and they poured bleach on him.”
Nordquist was reportedly assaulted with a broom handle, dog toys, sticks, canes, and other objects.
Prosecutors declined to add hate-crime enhancements to the charges, saying the case is “bigger than a hate crime” and that adding hate-crime charges would “make this charge about Sam’s gender or about Sam’s race, and it’s so much bigger.”
Wolford said prosecutors were particularly disturbed that children were allegedly forced to participate in the torture of Nordquist.
“We have a 7- and 12-year-old who are also victims. They may have been forced to participate, but their lives are forever changed by what they saw and endured.”
The defendants face life in prison if convicted on all charges.
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