Jose Ortiz-Casillas, 20, and Victor Denogean Jr., 21, allegedly hatched a plot to kill their roommate, Curtis B. Rimer, and steal his money.

Jose Ortiz-Casillas, left, and Victor Denogean Jr. (Henderson Police Department)

On a Monday morning in April, Curtis B. Rimer’s mother received a text message from a phone number she did not recognize.

“Curtis is going to leave to France,” it said.

But she knew the 55-year-old Henderson resident did not have a passport.

Worried by the text, his mother and other out-of-state family members spent the rest of the day calling and texting Rimer’s phone.

The next day, April 9, after receiving a request for a welfare check from the Rimer family, Henderson police found the man dead in a hallway closet in his home on the 1900 block of Cutlass Drive. His body had been wrapped in blankets and tied with white rope, according to police.

His car, a red 2011 Subaru Legacy, was missing, police have said.

A week later, police in Phoenix received a call from 20-year-old Jose Ortiz-Casillas, who said he wanted to “confess to a murder,” according to his arrest report.

In his statement, Ortiz-Casillas said that he and his alleged coconspirator, Victor Denogean Jr., 21, had devised a plan to kill Rimer, their roommate, and take his money, the report states.

Rimer’s official cause of death still had not been determined by the Clark County coroner’s office as of Friday, but Ortiz-Casillas said that Denogean had strangled Rimer with a belt.

The pair then hid Rimer’s body in the hallway closet and fled in the man’s Subaru to Phoenix, where they had planned to cross the border into Mexico, according to the report. But Ortiz-Casillas’ call to police disrupted the planned crossing.

Police later linked Denogean to the unknown phone number that had sent the strange text message to Rimer’s mother, the report said.

Ortiz-Casillas was extradited to Henderson in late April and as of Friday remained in custody without bail at the Clark County Detention Center awaiting his preliminary hearing on July 1, court records show. He was formally charged on May 1 in Henderson Justice Court with one count of murder.

Court records indicate Denogean was still awaiting extradition from Arizona as of Friday. He also faces one count of murder.

Contact Rio Lacanlale at rlacanlale@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0381. Follow @riolacanlale on Twitter.