{"id":103203,"date":"2025-07-29T22:32:14","date_gmt":"2025-07-29T22:32:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/103203\/"},"modified":"2025-07-29T22:32:14","modified_gmt":"2025-07-29T22:32:14","slug":"man-indicted-in-mercedes-vega-murder-plans-to-act-as-his-own-attorney","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/103203\/","title":{"rendered":"Man indicted in Mercedes Vega murder plans to act as his own attorney"},"content":{"rendered":"

PHOENIX (AZFamily)<\/b> \u2014 A suspect linked to the brutal murder of Mercedes Vega, who was found off Interstate 10 west of Buckeye two years ago, made his initial court appearance on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Newly obtained court records show Cudjoe Mahdi Young was recently indicted on multiple felonies, including a first-degree murder charge, armed robbery, kidnapping, conspiracy to commit murder, and arson of an occupied structure.<\/p>\n

In Tuesday\u2019s hearing, Young said he plans to represent himself in the case, a particularly unusual move given that he was already in custody for an unrelated warrant.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou will be held at the same standard as an attorney. You\u2019ll have the follow the same rules, and know all the same procedures, you understand that,\u201d the judge asked. <\/p>\n

\u201cYes, sir,\u201d Young replied. <\/p>\n

\"CudjoeCudjoe Mahdi Young makes a court appears at Maricopa County Superior Court in Phoenix, Arizona on July 29, 2025.(Arizona’s Family\/POOL)<\/p>\n

Arizona\u2019s Family previously reported that Young was implicated in the high-profile murder after charges were filed against Jared Demarcus Gray<\/a>. Court papers revealed that Gray was linked to the crime scene through evidence. While he admitted to being in Arizona on business, he did not elaborate.<\/p>\n

Vega was last seen alive on April 16, 2023, leaving her Tempe apartment on surveillance video. She had planned to meet with friends, but her car was later found abandoned near Culinary Dropout in Tempe.<\/p>\n

Her body was found the next day in a different car<\/a> that had been set on fire a few miles west of Tonopah. A medical examiner\u2019s report said Vega had been shot in the arm, hit in the head, and had bleach in her throat<\/a>, but she was still alive when the fire started. The report concluded that Vega died from smoke inhalation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Young is being held in the Maricopa County jail on a $2 million cash-only bond.<\/p>\n

See a spelling or grammatical error in our story? Please click here to report it<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Do you have a photo or video of a breaking news story? Send it to us here<\/a> with a brief description.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2025 KTVK\/KPHO. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHOENIX (AZFamily) \u2014 A suspect linked to the brutal murder of Mercedes Vega, who was found off Interstate…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":103204,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5131],"tags":[5229,5643,1587,7182,66830,66829,66833,66828,1589,7183,66831,22081,66832,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-103203","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-phoenix","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-arizona","10":"tag-az","11":"tag-azfamily","12":"tag-cudjoe-mahdi-young","13":"tag-mercades-vega","14":"tag-mercades-vega-case","15":"tag-mercedes-vegas","16":"tag-phoenix","17":"tag-phoenix-news","18":"tag-salmome-road-body","19":"tag-true-crime","20":"tag-true-crime-arizona","21":"tag-united-states","22":"tag-united-states-of-america","23":"tag-unitedstates","24":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","25":"tag-us","26":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114938900878183749","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103203"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103203\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}