An Arizona woman defended her fiancé in court after police accused him of recruiting a stranger on Reddit to sexually assault her inside their home while her two young children were present.
Bella Torres maintained in court Wednesday that Zarian Dyer, 23, had been falsely implicated by the man accused of attacking her. But investigators say messages recovered from two phones show Dyer coordinating the October 16 assault in Buckeye, west of Phoenix, with 20-year-old Adrian Ayala.
Torres tearfully accused Ayala of making allegations against Dyer in a desperate effort to explain his own conduct. She did not directly address the digital messages cited by investigators, according to reports of the hearing.
Police said the men met online and arranged for Ayala to approach Torres while Dyer was away. The alleged communications, obtained by 12News from court records, include a warning that Torres had not agreed to the plan.
Ayala asked whether the woman was “in on” it. The other account answered, “Nope.” Ayala then wrote that he wanted to “back out” of the plan. He also expressed discomfort because the woman had not consented, but the other account allegedly urged him to continue.
The response asserted that threats would make the woman more receptive, according to the records. Another message told Ayala to “get here faster” while the sender tried to “fake kill time” at a nearby store.
Store surveillance subsequently showed Dyer walking through a grocery store around half past five in the afternoon and leaving without making a purchase, investigators reported. The attack occurred around 6 p.m.
Torres told officers that a stranger appeared at her door asking to use the bathroom, then forced his way inside when she refused. At Wednesday’s hearing, she recalled receiving an alert from her home security sensor as she and her daughter approached the entrance, believing her partner had returned with groceries.
“Instead, I found a stranger at my door,” Torres recalled. She described fighting the intruder and chasing him out before Dyer returned and the man fled.
Surveillance footage captured the intruder telling Torres that her fiancé had said she would “be into this,” according to an arrest report. Ayala escaped before officers arrived, but was arrested at his home the following day.
Ayala initially told his father that a YouTuber had hired him to reenact an attack, according to the report cited by KTAR. Investigators later said he admitted conspiring with Dyer. Police have not publicly established a motive.
Dyer denied involvement and described the messages as “disgusting,” according to court records. Police arrested him October 29, nearly two weeks after the incident. He faces aggravated assault, sexual abuse, attempted sexual assault, kidnapping and conspiracy charges, with bond set at $500,000. Ayala was released on $25,000 bond, according to KTAR.
Torres insisted in court that her fiancé was behind bars because of false accusations, offering a sharply different account from investigators who say the phones and surveillance records support their allegations.
In a separate Arizona case, a mother of two said her 11-year-old daughter saved her life by calling 911 as her fiancé allegedly stabbed and beat her weeks before their wedding.
Emily Byles, 30, had moved to Glendale to be with Zachary Velasquez. She told Fox10 Phoenix he attacked her October 5 with scissors, approximately a month before they were due to marry.
“He wasn’t trying to just hurt me. He was trying to end my life,” Byles told the station. She said she had been stabbed repeatedly, beaten and left with an injured vertebral artery that required surgery. Photographs showed bruising around both eyes and cuts to her face and neck.
Byles told police that Velasquez had been using methamphetamine and had described himself as a prophet, claiming he needed to kill her to save her. She also alleged he threatened her daughters, but her oldest child contacted emergency services before the children were attacked.
“She’s very, very brave, and I couldn’t imagine what she’s going through,” Byles said of her daughter.
Officers forced their way into a bedroom after hearing Byles crying out and found her on her back, covered in blood, according to a probable cause statement obtained by People. Byles told police Velasquez threatened to kill her if she got up and claimed it was God’s plan for her to die.
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Velasquez acknowledged punching Byles and putting her in a chokehold, but claimed self-defense. According to the affidavit, he said an argument began after she saw photographs of women on his phone. He alleged that he feared she was suicidal and hid sharp objects before she confronted him with one of the scissors.
His account differed from Byles’ allegations that he struck her head dozens of times and stabbed her. Velasquez was charged with aggravated assault. Byles was hospitalized in critical condition before undergoing surgery for the arterial injury.
After her release, Byles said she was staying with a friend while her daughters lived temporarily with her sister. She described their home as “unlivable” because of blood remaining from the attack.
“My fiancé, the person who attacked me, is now in jail, but my children and I are still living with the trauma of what happened,” she wrote on a fundraising page.
