Friend arrested in Texas cold case killing of woman stabbed 100 times

U.S. newsFriend arrested in Texas cold case killing of woman stabbed 100 timesInvestigative genetic genealogy helped identify Mayra Velasquez, 42, as the suspect in Irasema Chavez’s 2012 stabbing death in the Arlington cold case.Listen to this article with a free profile00:0000:00ShareAdd NBC News to GoogleJuly 22, 2026, 7:24 PM EDTBy Marlene LenthangFor 14 years, the brutal killing of Irasema Chavez, who was stabbed more than 100 times in her Texas apartment in 2012, has remained a mystery. Subscribe to read this story ad-freeGet unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content.After years of investigation and holding onto hope, authorities identified the suspect as Mayra Velasquez, 42, a friend of Chavez’s, the Arlington Police Department and FBI announced in a news conference Wednesday. Velasquez was arrested Thursday on a warrant charging her with capital murder. A motive in the stabbing remains unclear, police said. Authorities said a suspect was identified through investigative genetic genealogy, a process that uses unidentified crime scene DNA, genealogical research and historical records to identify unknown DNA. Chavez, 32, was found in her apartment, unresponsive and covered in blood, on Jan. 20, 2012. She was declared dead at the scene, police said. The Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office determined she had been stabbed more than 100 times, police said.Irasema Chavez.Arlington Police DepartmentMissing from her apartment was a TV, which investigators believed was taken by the suspect.At the scene investigators collected a droplet of fresh blood on the bedroom television stand. That sample was sent to a crime lab for DNA analysis and determined it didn’t belong Chavez, but to an unknown Hispanic female.The DNA profile was uploaded into the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System, a national database to compare DNA profiles in criminal investigations, but there was no match.In November 2024, the Arlington Police Department’s Homicide, Unit met with the...