San Jose man charged with murder after claiming strangulation was sex accident

A correction to this article has been appended to the end of the article.

SAN JOSE — A man has been charged with murder after telling police that his boyfriend’s strangulation death at their East San Jose apartment last week was an accident that happened during sex, according to authorities and court filings.

The claim failed to convince investigators after an autopsy revealed that the victim’s injuries required him to be severely choked for several minutes, and documented an array of blunt trauma that predated his death.

Marco Angel Jimenez, 22, of San Jose, faces one count of murder in the July 15 death of Achilles Davis, a 22-year-old resident of the Sacramento-area city of Carmichael.

Jimenez was arraigned in court Tuesday, did not enter a plea, and was ordered to return Aug. 28.

According to a San Jose police investigation, officers were called around 1 a.m. to the couple’s apartment in the 2100 block of Lanai Avenue for a report of a dead body.

The officers arrived to find Davis unconscious and not breathing, bleeding from his nose, and exhibiting a bruised and swollen left eye; he was pronounced dead at the scene.

In an ensuing interrogation, police said “Jimenez claimed that the victim had died from ‘choking’ during sexual relations,” according to an SJPD affidavit accompanying the criminal charge. The Santa Clara County Medical Examiner-Coroner’s Office cast doubt on that idea in part through its finding that Davis’ cricoid cartilage in his neck was fractured, an injury that would require serious pressure, “unabated for a substantial time after the loss of consciousness.”

The coroner’s office also documented facial swelling and bruising they described as being “likely caused prior to death,” and “acute bruising” throughout his body, according to the affidavit.

Jimenez was booked July 17 into the county Main Jail in San Jose, and was being held without bail. The affidavit also states that investigators examined cell phone video, but does not detail what that footage showed.

Davis’ death was the 15th homicide of the year investigated by San Jose police; the city recorded 14 homicides by the same point in 2025, according to data compiled by this news organization. Of the current year’s homicides, six were deemed to have involved domestic violence, four of them reported since the beginning of June.

Anyone with information about the July 15 homicide can contact 408-504-1326 or email Detective Sgt. Julien Taylor at [email protected] or Detective Catherine Van Brande at [email protected]. Tips can also be left with Silicon Valley Crime Stoppers at 408-947-7867 or at siliconvalleycrimestoppers.org.

CORRECTION July 21, 2026 Due to incorrect information provided by authorities, an earlier version of this article incorrectly named and misgendered the victim of a homicide. That person was Achilles Davis, who identified as male.