{"id":375005,"date":"2026-07-16T03:33:29","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T03:33:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/375005\/"},"modified":"2026-07-16T03:33:29","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T03:33:29","slug":"dallas-county-da-wont-seek-death-penalty-in-old-east-dallas-motel-beheading","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/375005\/","title":{"rendered":"Dallas County DA won’t seek death penalty in Old East Dallas motel beheading"},"content":{"rendered":"

Texas won’t seek the death penalty<\/a> for a man facing capital murder<\/a> charges in a decapitating\u00a0homicide<\/a> at<\/p>\n

an Old East Dallas<\/a> motel in September, according to court filings.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dallas County Criminal<\/p>\n

District Attorney John Creuzot released a notice of intent submitted to Dallas County court on July 6, stating Texas will not seek the death penalty in the case against Yordanis Cobos-Martinez.\u00a0<\/p>\n

An attorney for Cobos-Martinez didn’t immediately return a phone call requesting comment Wednesday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Cobos-Martinez, 37, is accused of attacking and decapitating<\/a> his coworker, 50-year-old hotel manager\u00a0Chandra Nagamallaiah, on Sept. 10 at the Downtown Suites motel on\u00a0Samuell Boulevard in Old East Dallas. Nagamallaiah was cleaning a room<\/p>\n

when Cobos-Martinez approached them and began arguing with Nagamallaiah about a broken washing machine, according to an arrest-warrant affidavit.<\/p>\n

Cobos-Martinez became angry that Nagamallaiah was speaking to a witness to translate instead of to him directly, the affidavit said.\u00a0Authorities allege\u00a0Cobos-Martinez then left the room and came back with a machete, which they say<\/p>\n

he used to attack Nagamalliaiah.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Nagamallaiah left the room screaming, fleeing to the hotel parking lot then to the<\/p>\n

front office, where Cobos-Martinez chased him until he eventually killed him, the affidavit states. Cobos-Martinez then pushed Nagamallaiah’s wife and son as they attempted to stop the attack, according to the affidavit.<\/p>\n

Cobos-Martinez\u00a0fled the scene, but was detained by police shortly after the attack, still covered in blood and armed with the machete, the affidavit said. Cobos-Martinez was formally charged<\/a> with capital murder\u00a0on Oct. 23, court records show.<\/p>\n

Cobos-Martinez is from Cuba and had a prior deportation order to the country, Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, previously told The Dallas Morning News.<\/p>\n

He had an immigration detainer issued against him by DHS when he was originally arrested and booked in Dallas County jail.<\/p>\n

Cobos-Martinez has an extensive criminal history that includes a one-year jail sentence for assault in 2018 and a 2017 arrest in California on allegations that he attempted to carjack a woman while naked, according to the affidavit.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Subscribe<\/p>\n

Sign up for the Morning Roundup, a free newsletter delivering the latest North Texas news each morning.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Texas won’t seek the death penalty for a man facing capital murder charges in a decapitating\u00a0homicide at an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":375006,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[6885,28681,102,581,104,103,401,2315,2110,132646,132645],"class_list":["post-375005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-capital-murder","tag-cobos-martinez","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-county","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news","tag-dallas-police","tag-death-penalty","tag-old-east-dallas","tag-samuell-boulevard","tag-the-downtown-suites"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=375005"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375005\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/375006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=375005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=375005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=375005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}