CANANDAIGUA, New York — Shirley L. Morales, 56, of Geneva, pleaded not guilty on Monday, November 2, in Ontario County Court to first-degree kidnapping, second-degree kidnapping and second-degree conspiracy in the Sam Nordquist case, after a grand jury indictment against her was unsealed at her arraignment. Morales is the mother of Precious Arzuaga, the central figure in the torture and murder of Nordquist, a 24-year-old man from Minnesota, and she remained in the Ontario County Jail without bail after the hearing.

Source: Finger Lakes Times

The Ontario County District Attorney's Office confirmed at a press conference after the arraignment that the charges are connected to the Nordquist case. Morales is represented by attorney John Gilsenan. Judge Kristina Karle, the same judge who presided over the earlier guilty pleas in the case, continued Morales's no-bail status following the arraignment, according to court reporting.

What the indictment alleges

The indictment, filed on October 30 and kept sealed until Monday, refers to the alleged victim by the initials S.N. and alleges that Morales, acting alone or with another person, abducted Nordquist between December 31, 2024, and February 1, 2025, in Ontario County, and that he died during the abduction or before he could be returned to safety. That allegation of a death during an abduction is the basis of the first-degree kidnapping count. The second-degree kidnapping count alleges the abduction itself, and the conspiracy count alleges that she agreed with one or more other people to commit the crime.

Source: POLISH, reporting the unsealed indictment and 13WHAM

According to WHEC Channel 10 News in Rochester, which obtained a copy of the indictment and whose reporting was cited by the Finger Lakes Times, Morales allegedly put Nordquist in the trunk of a car to transport him to a residence in Geneva, physically restrained and confined him, and beat him. The indictment also alleges that she agreed to alert co-conspirators if Nordquist attempted to escape, and that she later brought him back to Hopewell. These are allegations in a criminal indictment; they have not been proven in court, and Morales has pleaded not guilty to every count.

Source: Finger Lakes Times, citing WHEC

New York State Police arrested Morales on Friday, October 30, the day the sealed indictment was filed. At the time of the arrest, police did not release the charges, and it was not publicly clear whether the arrest was connected to the Nordquist investigation. That connection was confirmed only when the indictment was unsealed at Monday's arraignment and the District Attorney's Office addressed reporters.

The case so far: who Sam Nordquist was

Sam Nordquist, 24, travelled in September 2024 from his hometown of Oakdale, Minnesota, to Canandaigua in New York's Finger Lakes region to meet Precious Arzuaga, whom he had met online. He had bought a round-trip ticket and intended to return home after a short visit, hoping to deepen a new romantic relationship, according to the investigation as reported by the Finger Lakes Times.

Instead, investigators say Arzuaga and her accomplices conspired to hold Nordquist against his will at Patty's Lodge in Hopewell and tortured him for about a month, beginning January 1, 2025. That January was also the last time his mother, Linda Nordquist, spoke to her son. At the family's prompting, New York State Police opened a missing-person file that quickly became a murder investigation.

Nordquist's body was found on February 13, 2025, in a field off Payne Road in Yates County. Seven suspects were arrested in connection with the murder, in a case that drew national attention and became one of the most closely followed prosecutions in the Finger Lakes region in recent years.

Three generations of one family in a single prosecution

With Morales's arraignment, the prosecution now reaches three generations of one family. Her daughter, Precious Arzuaga, pleaded guilty in June to first-degree murder and other charges, including aggravated sexual assault, kidnapping and conspiracy to conceal a human corpse, and was sentenced on September 8 to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Morales is also the grandmother of Thomas Eaves, Arzuaga's son, who is one of the defendants still awaiting trial.

Of the other defendants, Jennifer Quijano has also been sentenced to life without parole. Kyle Sage took a plea deal to second-degree murder and second-degree kidnapping and has been sentenced, and Emily Motyka has pleaded guilty and has yet to be sentenced. Patrick Goodwin, Kimberly Sochia and Thomas Eaves are awaiting trial, with trials in the remaining cases expected to begin in January 2027, according to reporting on the case. Morales's own case will proceed separately through Ontario County Court.

Chief Assistant District Attorney Sara Van Strydonck and Senior Assistant District Attorney Robin Catalano are prosecuting the case against Morales for the Ontario County District Attorney's Office, District Attorney Jason MacBride's office told reporters. Prosecutors said at Monday's press conference that the wider investigation remains ongoing, and that if further evidence warrants further arrests, they will pursue them.

What happens next

Morales's next scheduled appearance is November 18, a virtual conference limited to the attorneys in the case; no bail application had been made as of the arraignment, and she remains jailed without bail in the meantime. Her case now moves through the same Ontario County Court that handled the guilty pleas and life sentences earlier in this prosecution, while the remaining trials of Goodwin, Sochia and Eaves are still ahead.

For readers in the Finger Lakes and across New York, the new charges mean the Nordquist case — which began with a missing-person report in early 2025 — is still expanding more than a year and a half after Nordquist's body was found, and that further court developments are expected through the winter, starting with the November 18 conference.