{"id":393961,"date":"2026-07-31T21:27:34","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T21:27:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/393961\/"},"modified":"2026-07-31T21:27:34","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T21:27:34","slug":"accused-killer-mayra-velasquez-declares-innocence-in-2012-arlington-stabbing-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/393961\/","title":{"rendered":"Accused killer Mayra Velasquez declares innocence in 2012 Arlington stabbing case"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mayra Velasquez, the woman accused of fatally stabbing her friend more than 100 times in 2012<\/a>, made her first public statement Friday, declaring she is innocent and urging investigators to look elsewhere for the killer.<\/p>\n

“I am Mayra Velasquez. I did not do this,” Velasquez said as she sat beside her attorneys.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Velasquez, who is free on a $450,000 bond<\/a>, is charged with capital murder in the death of 22\u2011year\u2011old Irasema Chavez inside Chavez’s Arlington apartment 14 years ago.<\/p>\n

Velasquez said she could never harm her friend. “I will never do this to anyone. I’m a good person. She was my friend,” Velasquez said. “All those people who know me, they know that I could never do something like this to anyone.”<\/p>\n

\"jd.png<\/p>\n

Mayra Velasquez \u00a0<\/p>\n

CBS News Texas<\/p>\n

Her attorneys did not allow reporters to ask questions and required members of the media to sign an agreement acknowledging that restriction.<\/p>\n

Velasquez was arrested earlier this month after Arlington Police used investigative genetic genealogy to link her to a drop of blood found inside the apartment. Her attorney, Frank Sellers, said security camera footage of the suspected killer shows a person with a different body type. Sellers also urged investigators to reexamine another woman who knew Chavez.<\/p>\n

“There was a breakup that happened that day between Irasema and another woman,” Sellers said. “This is somebody who had passion. This is somebody who, as the initial detective said, he thought was from a romantic fallout.”<\/p>\n

Arlington police<\/a> said during a media briefing two weeks ago that their case relies on more than DNA.<\/p>\n

“They were friends, and Ms. Velasquez had been in the apartment before,” an investigator said. “We were able to obtain some information from her in the interview, which will help in her prosecution.”<\/p>\n

Velasquez said she believes the truth will emerge.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I have faith in God that they’re going to find out who did this to her, my friend,” she said.<\/p>\n

Her attorneys said they arranged the brief statement to show Velasquez is not capable of committing a brutal killing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I think part of the reason we wanted Mayra to come and talk to everybody is she deeply cared about her friend Irasema,” attorney McCall Hoops said. “You can sense that when you’re near her, when she talks about her.”<\/p>\n

Velasquez is required to wear a GPS ankle monitor while she awaits a decision from a Tarrant County grand jury on whether she will be indicted on the capital murder charge.<\/p>\n

\n More from CBS News\n <\/p>\n

In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mayra Velasquez, the woman accused of fatally stabbing her friend more than 100 times in 2012, made her…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":393962,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[150,152,151,430,27],"class_list":["post-393961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arlington","tag-arlington","tag-arlington-headlines","tag-arlington-news","tag-north-texas","tag-texas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393961","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=393961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393961\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/393962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=393961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=393961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=393961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}