DALLAS (AP) — Two women charged with murder and evidence tampering in the 2020 slaying in Texas of a Seattle woman have cut off their ankle monitors and fled while free on bond, a court filing said.
Nina Marano, 50, and her wife, Lisa Dykes, 58, were free on their $500,000 bonds when they removed their GPS trackers on Christmas Day within moments of each other and at the same location, according to court documents filed this week in Dallas.
Court documents did not list attorneys for the women.
The pair are charged with fatally stabbing Marisela Botello-Valadez. A police affidavit said she flew from Seattle to Dallas on Oct. 2, 2020, to visit a friend. That friend said she left his apartment on Oct. 4 to meet some friends at a nightclub, and a Lyft driver picked her up.
Botello-Valadez, 23, never returned to his home and missed her flight back to Seattle. She remained missing until her body was found almost six months later, on March 24, 2021, in a wooded area in Wilmer, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) southeast of Dallas. Marano and Dykes were arrested shortly after in Florida.ADVERTISEMENT
Co-defendant Charles Beltran was arrested in April 2021 in Utah. The 32-year-old suspect remained in the Dallas County Jail Thursday on a murder charge and with a bond also set at $500,000. A message to his attorney was not immediately returned.
