{"id":382823,"date":"2026-07-22T20:08:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T20:08:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/382823\/"},"modified":"2026-07-22T20:08:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T20:08:08","slug":"arlington-police-make-arrest-in-14-year-old-cold-case-with-fbi-help","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/382823\/","title":{"rendered":"Arlington police make arrest in 14-year-old cold case with FBI help"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mayra Velasquez, 42, was located in Hurst by officials with the Arlington<\/a> police fugitive unit, violent crime unit and covert investigations unit on July 16 and taken into custody.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As of Wednesday, Velasquez remains in the Tarrant County jail with no bail set, according to jail records. Police said she faces a capital murder charge.<\/p>\n

When asked if police believe they have the right person in custody, the case\u2019s lead homicide detective Tracey Dixon replied, \u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Jan. 20, 2012, Irasema Chavez\u00a0was found dead by a family member shortly before 9 a.m. in her apartment in the 2700 block of S. Collins Street, according to police.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Tarrant County<\/a> medical examiner\u2019s office determined she had been stabbed over 100 times, Arlington police chief Al Jones said during a news conference<\/a> Wednesday, and a TV was stolen from her apartment. The weapon was never recovered, Dixon said.<\/p>\n

Police turned to the FBI\u2019s Dallas Field Office for help in 2024 when a drop of blood found on Chavez\u2019s TV in 2012 produced no matches in the Combined DNA Index System, or CODIS. CODIS is a national law enforcement database used to compare DNA profiles in criminal investigations.\u00a0<\/p>\n

FBI officials helped police create a family tree using the blood and compared the unidentified DNA with publicly accessible genealogy and historical records, Special Agent in Charge of FBI Dallas Joseph \u201cJoe\u201d Rothrock said.<\/p>\n

In April, FBI officials put in a call to police and told them\u00a0Velasquez, who they say was a close friend of Chavez, was identified as a potential suspect. Jones noted Velasquez had lived just miles from Chavez\u2019s apartment.<\/p>\n

Officers then obtained a sample of Velasquez\u2019s DNA from discarded trash in May, Jones said, and sent it to be examined. It was determined her DNA was a match to the blood droplet found on the TV stand.<\/p>\n

The investigation into Chavez\u2019s death remains ongoing, though there\u2019s currently no one else police are looking at in connection with the killing, Jones said.<\/p>\n

With each solved cold case, Jones said, a loop is closed for families who\u2019ve been waiting years for answers. \u201cWe turn every stone, and we\u2019re not going to\u00a0stop,\u201d Jones added.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reason why we give so much of ourselves is for that,\u201d Dixon said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mayra Velasquez, 42, was located in Hurst by officials with the Arlington police fugitive unit, violent crime unit…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":382824,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[150,152,151,732,87907,89218,89217],"class_list":["post-382823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arlington","tag-arlington","tag-arlington-headlines","tag-arlington-news","tag-article","tag-tp-arlington","tag-tp-homicide","tag-tp-tarrant-county"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382823","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=382823"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382823\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/382824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=382823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=382823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=382823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}