More than a decade after a Texas woman was found stabbed roughly 100 times in her apartment, a real estate agent is behind bars without bond, facing capital murder charges.
Mayra Velasquez, 42, was booked into the Tarrant County Corrections Center July 17 in the killing of Irasema Chavez, according to the Arlington Police Department and county jail records.
Chavez, 32, was found dead Jan. 20, 2012, inside her second-floor apartment in the 2700 block of South Collins Street. Investigators said there were no obvious signs of forced entry, raising the possibility that Chavez knew the person who killed her or willingly opened the door.
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Surveillance video obtained by KDFW-TV from the night before the grisly discovery showed a person wearing baggy clothing and a hoodie climbing the stairs to Chavezs unit. The figure knocked, appeared to exchange words with someone at the door and was then allowed inside.
Police released the video in hopes the public could identify the visitor, but the shadowy image failed to produce the break detectives needed. The case eventually went cold.
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Investigators did, however, recover blood from the crime scene that did not belong to Chavez.
In 2016, Arlington police worked with Virginia-based Parabon NanoLabs to analyze the unknown DNA. The company used DNA phenotyping technology to produce a composite predicting the persons likely appearance, including long brown hair and Latino ancestry.
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Still, no firm suspect emerged.
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The case gained new life in November 2024, when Arlington police brought it to the FBIs Dallas Field Office and sought help from the bureaus investigative genetic genealogy program. That
