{"id":381665,"date":"2026-07-22T00:16:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T00:16:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/381665\/"},"modified":"2026-07-22T00:16:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T00:16:11","slug":"dna-breakthrough-leads-to-arrest-in-cold-case-of-woman-stabbed-nearly-100-times-reports-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/381665\/","title":{"rendered":"DNA breakthrough leads to arrest in cold case of woman stabbed nearly 100 times: reports"},"content":{"rendered":"

A 14-year-old Texas cold case recently took a dramatic turn after cutting-edge DNA technology led investigators to a murder suspect, according to reports.<\/p>\n

Online records from the Tarrant County Jail<\/a> show that 42-year-old Mayra Velasquez was arrested on Friday and charged with capital murder. She is currently being held at the at Tarrant County Corrections Center without bond.<\/p>\n

The Arlington Police Department and the FBI Dallas Field Office said Velasquez — a real estate agent — was arrested in connection with the 2012 murder of 32-year-old Irasema Chavez, per FOX 4 News<\/a>. The media outlet reported that Chavez was found dead inside her Arlington apartment on Jan. 20, 2012, after she was stabbed nearly 100 times.<\/p>\n

Investigators determined there were no signs of forced entry, leading them to believe the she knew her attacker, according to reports. <\/p>\n

Surveillance video circulating online appeared to capture a person walking into Chavez’s apartment the night before the deadly attack, but FOX 4 News<\/a> reported that investigators were unable to identify the suspect at the time.<\/p>\n

The case remained unsolved for years despite investigators developing a DNA profile from blood recovered at the crime scene, per FOX 4 News<\/a>. Police worked with Parabon NanoLabs to generate a forensic DNA phenotype, or predicted image of the suspect, but the investigation stalled, the outlet noted.<\/p>\n

A breakthrough came in late 2024 when police partnered with the FBI’s Dallas Field Office and used investigative genetic genealogy, a technique that combines DNA analysis with genealogy databases to identify possible relatives of an unknown suspect, the outlet reported. <\/p>\n

The effort ultimately led investigators to Velasquez.<\/p>\n

According to reports, investigators have been mum with details but are expected to release more information about the arrest during a news conference on Wednesday. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A 14-year-old Texas cold case recently took a dramatic turn after cutting-edge DNA technology led investigators to a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":381375,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[150,152,151],"class_list":["post-381665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arlington","tag-arlington","tag-arlington-headlines","tag-arlington-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381665","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=381665"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381665\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/381375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=381665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=381665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=381665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}