Maria Jimenez-Rodriguez (pictured above) vanished mysteriously five years ago, but this week, there has been a significant development in her case. A man suspected of her 2018 murder, which involved dismembering her body with a chainsaw, was arrested and charged by the Houston Police Department.
Eric Fardell Arceneaux, aged 51, was apprehended outside a business in Houston on Friday and subsequently charged with Jimenez-Rodriguez's murder, despite her body not yet being found. Public arrest records indicate that Arceneaux's bail is set at $250,000, and he remains in custody.
Local NBC affiliate KPRC-TV reported that blood evidence, GPS surveillance, and security footage have linked Arceneaux to the woman's murder five years ago. Jimenez-Rodriguez disappeared after dropping her young daughter off at a babysitter's house in Houston one fateful afternoon.
Suspicion arose when a series of text messages, purportedly from Jimenez-Rodriguez's phone, were sent to a co-worker the following day. These messages raised concerns among friends and family.
In one message, she claimed the babysitter told her to pick up her child, and in another, she expressed fear of being followed. However, when she failed to show up for work the next day, her sister reported her as missing.
A family spokesperson asserted that they believed the sender of the messages was not Jimenez-Rodriguez but Arceneaux posing as her to deflect suspicion. Additionally, the babysitter denied telling Jimenez-Rodriguez to retrieve her child on the day she disappeared.
Jimenez-Rodriguez's car was located 24 hours after her family reported her missing.
Phone records examined by the police indicated that Arceneaux's and her phone were in close proximity on the day she went missing, even up to the hour police believed she vanished. Notably, her phone was found with Arceneaux when he visited a Home Depot later that day and was captured on security footage purchasing an electric chainsaw and trash bags.
A search of his residence also revealed blood spatters on the walls and ceiling.
In 2019, Jimenez-Rodriguez's sister, Gloria Rodriguez, expressed her belief that Arceneaux was a stalker, and she had no knowledge of any prior relationship between them. However, court records described him as the missing woman's boyfriend. Arceneaux's daughter, unrelated to Jimenez-Rodriguez, informed the police that he used to physically abuse her mother during her childhood.
She speculated that Jimenez-Rodriguez might have been attempting to end her relationship with her father before her disappearance.
In another news, Ovidio Guzman Lopez, the son of notorious drug lord El Chapo, has been extradited from Mexico to the United States to face drug-related charges. See detailed story here
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