Two women have been arrested a second time on charges connected to the killing of a 23-year-old Seattle woman in Dallas. Per a report by The Dallas Morning News, the women initially fled in December of last year, but were arrested in Cambodia in late February.
Authorities said 50-year-old Nina Marano and her wife, 58-year-old Lisa Dykes, were two of three people charged in the death of Marisela Botello-Valadez, who was stabbed in 2020 while visiting a friend in Dallas. The third person charged was 32-year-old Charles Anthony Beltran.
According to authorities, Botello went out alone on the night of October 4, 2020. Security footage showed her leaving a bar with Beltran the next morning. That was when she was last seen alive.
The friend Botello was visiting in Dallas told her family that she never came back to his home after she left that night.
According to an arrest warrant affidavit, Beltran admitted that he met Botello in Deep Ellum and then took her to his Mesquite home, where they had sex.
He said he then fell asleep and later woke up to Dykes on top of Botello. According to records of Beltran’s testimony, Dykes allegedly held a knife over Botello and made a stabbing motion with one hand while she held Botello’s neck with the other.
Beltran said that he tried to intervene but Marano entered the room and shoved him out of the way. Beltran then claims he fled the house.
According to the affidavit, Beltran said that the bedroom had been wiped clean when he went back to the home. He said that Dykes and Marano told him they took care of everything.
Botello’s body was found in a wooded area near East Belt Line and Post Oak roads in Wilmer on March 24, 2021.
Phone records obtained by authorities showed that Dykes and Marano left Beltran’s Mesquite home on October 4 and drove to a wooded area near Hutchins. A search of the home yielded the discovery of blood stains in the carpet that matched Botello’s DNA.
Authorities said the three suspects were evasive during the investigation; they refused to speak to detectives at times, and even left their jobs and moved out of their homes.
Police arrested Dykes and Marano in Florida later in March. Beltran was apprehended in Utah on April 2, 2021. The three were extradited to Texas and indicted in June.
The bail for all three suspects was set at $500,000. While Beltran has remained at the Dallas County jail since April 2021, Dykes and Marano were released on bonds in May.
The conditions of the women’s release included house arrest with ankle monitor tracking. However, court documents say they removed their judge-mandated GPS trackers on December 25, 2021.
The women were arrested in Cambodia near the end of February 2022. Authorities said that the arrest was made by the Cambodian police with the FBI’s assistance. However, they did not give specific details on how the women were found.
Heath Harris, Dykes’ lawyer, was unaware of the women’s arrest when contacted by the DMN, and expressed surprise that the women had been found in Cambodia. The DMN was unable to reach Marano’s lawyer for comment.
Harris said the pair’s decision to flee was not evidence of the women’s guilt, but rather of their fear of Beltran.
“I don’t believe they fled because they felt they were guilty of murder. I believe they fled because they are concerned for their safety and they didn’t want to have to cooperate against the co-defendant,” Harris said.
Beltran, Marano, and Dykes all face one count of murder each. The two women are also charged with tampering with or fabricating physical evidence.
