On Wednesday, a 23-year-old Seattle woman was convicted guilty of murder in the stabbing death of a Texas woman who had already severed her ankle monitor and escaped the nation while awaiting trial last year. The judge handed down a life sentence to her.
After seven days of trial, a Dallas jury found Lisa Dykes guilty of murder and evidence tampering in the 2020 death of Marisela Botello-Valadez. According to KDFW-TV, Dykes, 60, remained composed as the judge announced the verdict.
According to Heath Harris, Dykes’s lawyer, his client has already filed papers to appeal the conviction, and she maintains her innocence.
An email requesting comment from the Dallas County District Attorney’s office went unanswered for the time being.
In the murder case involving the fatal stabbing of Marisela Botello-Valadez, a 23-year-old woman from Seattle, Lisa Dykes, who is 60 years old, was found guilty. The judge handed down a life sentence to her. Police Department of Dallas County
The prosecution had already abandoned murder charges against two individuals they had accused of Botello-Valadez’s killing, and the conviction comes days after that. On charges of tampering with evidence, Nina Marano and Charles Anthony Beltran remain in court.
Upon Beltran’s testimony, prosecutors wasted no time in attempting to drop the murder charges.
Marano and Dykes were his roommates, according to the 34-year-old’s testimony last week. He claimed he had sex with Botello-Valadez after meeting her at a nightclub. According to him, Dykes stabbed Botello-Valadez as he awoke from a fit of sleep. During Harris’s interrogation, Beltran admitted that he had first misled to investigators regarding the events.
The three were apprehended in October 2020, six months subsequent to Botello-Valadez’s disappearance. Months after her disappearance in Dallas was reported, her body parts were discovered in a forest.
Last year, while both Dykes and Marano were free on bond, the 52-year-old took off their ankle monitors, bringing the matter to the attention of the world. Rumor has it that they made it to Cambodia, where local authorities, aided by the FBI, apprehended them.
