The man who was arrested for the murder of a Dallas ISD teacher’s aide in 2024 has been sentenced to 20 years.
Sixto Banegas Matute was arrested on Jan. 10, 2024, for murder in connection to the death of Jennifer Mendez Olascoaga. He has been in jail since his arrest up until his sentencing on Oct. 13.
Matute was charged and found guilty of felony first-degree murder.
Before her remains were found, Mendez Olascoaga was reportedly missing for a few weeks in 2023.
According to the family, the 24-year-old Dallas resident was last seen on Sept. 27, 2023 at about 8:11 p.m. leaving a mobile home park along Highway 175 in Seagoville. Her car was found abandoned, without her purse or phone, on Lawson Road the following morning on Sept. 28.
It wasn’t until mid-October 2023 that her family was able to get some answers when human remains were found where woods and farmland line Lawson Road just off I-20 in Mesquite.
About a month later in November, the Dallas Medical Examiner’s Office identified those remains as Mendez Olascoaga.
An arrest affidavit obtained by NBC 5 revealed that human hair, bones and a torso were found scattered in a wooded area in Mesquite off IH-20 some two weeks after Mendez Olascoaga’s disappearance. Forensics also revealed small bullet fragments within the hair of those remains, detectives said.
During the initial search for Mendez Olascoaga, police released surveillance video showing her in a QuikTrip gas station near 175 and Beltline just after dropping her friend off a little after 8 p.m.
The documents say detectives with the Mesquite Police Department obtained her phone records after the remains were found and discovered a 15-minute call and several text messages to and from Mendez Olascoaga and Matute around the time she was at the QuikTrip. Which then led authorities to obtain call detail records for Matute’s phone.
Both Jennifer’s and Matute’s phones pinged in the same area along I-20 within a few seconds of each other, according to the affidavit, which also said both phones then pinged in the area where the human remains were discovered.
Those discoveries and facts ultimately served as enough probable cause to charge Matute with murder as Mendez Olascoaga’s death was ruled a homicide.
Mesquite PDMesquite PD
Maute was found guilty and sentenced to 20 years, but has been in jail since Jan. 2024 and has served over 1,000 days of jail time as of Oct. 13.