Dallas police have arrested Oscar Sanchez-Garcia, 25, in connection with the deaths of three women whose bodies were found in desolate fields in Oak Cliff.
A police investigation led to the identification and arrest of a suspect on Wednesday after an announcement was made alerting the public about the string of murders.
“Out of an abundance of caution, and in the interest of public safety, the department wants to inform this population of this trend,” Dallas Police Department wrote in a news release on July 18.
While no information on what led investigators to Garcia has been released yet, the connection between the three murders is now apparent.
In its original post, DPD had said that it was investigating a possible connection between the deaths of 60-year-old Kimberly Robinson, 25-year-old Cherish Gibson, and an unidentified woman in April, June, and July.
Robinson was the first victim discovered by police on April 22.
Her body was found in a field in the 200 block of Santa Fe Avenue, near the intersection of North Corinth Street Road and East Clarendon Drive in Council Member Carolyn King Arnold’s District 4.
Gibson’s body was uncovered in that same spot on June 24.
A third unidentified woman was found less than 2 miles from the original site in the 800 block of Brazos Street on July 15.
According to DPD, at least two of the victims were believed to have been involved in prostitution.
While the Dallas County Medical Examiner’s Office said both Robinson and Gibson had been stabbed to death, no details about the unidentified woman’s death were released apart from it having been ruled a homicide, according to The Dallas Morning News.
Garcia’s relationship to the three women and any potential motive for their alleged murder have not been disclosed. Records obtained by NBC 5 DFW showed that he was arrested in March for charges of domestic assault causing bodily injury.
Speaking with NBC 5, Bianca Davis, CEO of New Friends New Life, an organization that fights human trafficking and sexual exploitation, explained that violence is commonplace for women in prostitution.
“They talk about being strangled, being assaulted, being abused and wondering if this is the night that will be my last night,” Davis said. “The danger is still out there. But at least in this case, that’s one less woman who will suffer this fate.”
A victim of sex trafficking named Bekah Charleston shared with ABC 8 WFAA that she knew countless women in prostitution murdered by johns or traffickers.
“When you dehumanize a person to the point that they become a commodity that means now you’re just a product to someone that is to be paid for, used and discarded,” Charleston explained.
In Dallas-Fort Worth, incidents of sex trafficking are believed to be some of the highest in the state, as recently reported in The Dallas Express. The group Human Trafficking Courts estimated that 35% of cases involving commercial sex exploitation are from the metroplex.
Dallas has also seen an increase in homicides, with a spike of 23% logged during the first four months of the year in Dallas. The City has proclaimed that more recent statistics are “unreliable” due to a reported ransomware attack that struck servers in early May.
DPD is also facing a significant staffing shortage, with roughly 3,100 officers currently sworn in — far fewer than the estimated 4,000 needed to adequately police the city.
Neighboring Fort Worth has implemented a dedicated police unit to patrol its downtown area, which has seemingly lent to a much lower crime rate than in Downtown Dallas.