It was determined on Wednesday that a lady from Texas who had torn off her ankle monitor and fled the country while she was awaiting trial the previous year was convicted of murder in connection with the stabbing death of a woman from Seattle who was 23 years old. A sentence of life in prison was handed down to her.
Following a trial that lasted for seven days, a jury in Dallas found Lisa Dykes guilty of murder and tampering with evidence in connection with the disappearance of Marisela Botello-Valadez in the year 2020. According to KDFW-TV, Dykes, who is sixty years old, did not exhibit any feeling when the judge read the verdict out loud.
Heath Harris, who provides legal representation for Dykes, stated that his client continues to claim that she is innocent and has already submitted papers to appeal the conviction.
An email with a request for comment was sent to the office of the Dallas County District Attorney, but a spokesman for the office did not immediately respond.
The conviction comes just a few days after the prosecution dropped murder charges against two individuals who they had previously accused of being responsible for Botello-Valadez’s death. Nina Marano and Charles Anthony Beltran are still up for trial on charges of tampering with evidence. The charges have not yet been resolved.
In a short amount of time after Beltran took the witness stand, the prosecution made a motion to dismiss the murder charges.
This past week, the 34-year-old individual testified that he shared a residence with Marano and Dykes. According to him, he first encountered Botello-Valadez at a nightclub, and then the two of them went to his residence to have sexual relations. According to him, he went to sleep and awoke to the sound of Botello-Valadez being stabbed by Dykes on the spot. During the course of Harris’s interrogation, Beltran admitted that he had first lied to investigators about what had occurred.
Six months after Botello-Valadez was reported missing in October of 2020, the three individuals were taken into custody. Her skeletal remains were discovered in a forest in Dallas some months after she had been reported missing in that city.
Last year, Dykes and Marano, both 52 years old, severed their ankle monitors while they were free on bail, which brought the matter to the attention of people all over the world. According to the authorities, they ultimately made their way to Cambodia, where they were apprehended by the local police authorities with assistance from the FBI.
