Mayra Velasquez, the woman accused of fatally stabbing Irasema Chavez in Arlington the night of Jan. 19, 2012, says she is innocent of her friend’s murder.
“God and all the people who know me, they know that I couldn’t ever do something like this to anyone,” Velasquez said Friday morning at a news conference in her attorneys’ office in Fort Worth.
Velasquez was arrested July 16 and is charged with capital murder. Investigators said in the suspect’s arrest warrant affidavit that DNA extracted from a drop of “fresh and still glistening” blood found on the bottom shelf of the TV stand in Chavez’s bedroom helped link the 42-year-old real estate agent to the crime.
Velasquez was held for several days in the Tarrant County Jail without bond, but was finally released on bail Wednesday.
Defense attorney Frank Sellers said at the news conference that he wanted reporters to hear directly from the defendant.
“There’s a certain type of personality, there’s a certain type of person who’s capable of even being involved with stabbing somebody 100 times,” Sellers said. “That type of person is not Mayra Velasquez.”
Attorney Frank Sellers, left, holds a press conference with client Mayra Velasquez, right, on Friday, July 31, 2026, at Sellers Law Firm in Fort Worth. Velasquez has been charged with capital murder in the 2012 cold-case stabbing of her friend Irasema Chavez in Arlington. Amanda McCoy FORT WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM The crime
A family member found Chavez dead inside her Arlington apartment the morning of Jan. 20, 2012. Her large flat-screen living room television was missing, leading detectives at the time to surmise the killer may have known that footage from the victim’s surveillance cameras could be watched on that TV.
But the killer left the recording device behind. Surveillance video from the previous night showed someone wearing a baseball cap and oversized hoodie walk up the stairs to the victim’s second-floor apartment at 10:36 p.m. and knock on the door.
Irasema Chavez was found fatally stabbed inside her Arlington apartment in January 2012. Star-Telegram photo illustration/Photographer Dan Gutier, Family photos and Arlington Police Department
Chavez let the person in, leading detectives to believe she knew her killer. The video abruptly cut off about 10 minutes later when the recording device was apparently unplugged.
Investigators now believe the person shown on the video was Velasquez. Police said at a July 22 news conference that they are confident they arrested the right person.
Questions
Sellers said there are several things about the police investigation that don’t add up. For one, he’s not convinced the substance Velasquez’s DNA was taken from really was blood. He questions how it could still be fresh and glistening after so many hours.
He also told reporters that the presence of the defendant’s DNA just shows Velasquez had been in the apartment before. It doesn’t prove she committed the murder, he said.
“Setting aside the DNA, what else is there?” Sellers said. “What other evidence is there? There’s no motive, there’s no murder weapon, there’s no more evidence.”
When asked about the person in the surveillance video, Sellers said they’ve measured the height of the stair railing outside Chavez’s apartment and compared it to where the railing would come up to on Velasquez.
“That is not Mayra Velasquez,” Sellers said.
A friend
Velasquez and Chavez lived within a few miles of each other at the time of the murder, police have said.
According to Velasquez and her attorneys, the two women met in July or August 2011. One day they happened to be at the same place, and Velasquez overheard Chavez talking. She recognized her dialect and realized they were from the same town in Mexico.
The women became friends, but that was all, according to Sellers. He said the idea — mentioned in Velasquez’s arrest warrant affidavit — that the defendant’s husband at the time was jealous of the relationship is totally false.
Mayra Velasquez leaves a press conference held by her attorneys on Friday, July 31, 2026, at Sellers Law Firm in Fort Worth. Velasquez has been charged with capital murder in the 2012 cold-case stabbing of her friend Irasema Chavez in Arlington. Amanda McCoy FORT WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM
Sellers frequently referenced a Star-Telegram story from 2018 and the related “Out of the Cold” podcast that talk about Irasema Chavez’s murder and the search for suspects.
“We will be trying to get to the bottom of who’s really responsible for this,” Sellers said.
He said the defense team has already requested to present to the grand jury when the case gets to that point.
This story was originally published July 31, 2026 at 3:14 PM.
Related Stories from Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Harriet Ramos covers crime and other breaking news for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.