Mayra Velasquez: DNA Evidence Leads To Arrest In 2012 Texas Cold Case

Police arrested Mayra Velasquez this month for the alleged January 2012 murder of her close friend, Irasema Chavez. Chavez was 33 when family found her body inside her Arlington, Texas apartment. Read on for more details about the breakthrough in this cold case.

The Murder

Medical examiners determined someone stabbed Chavez over 100 times. A television was missing. Surveillance footage showed a figure in a hooded sweatshirt waiting outside the door before heading in. There was no sign of forced entry.

On the Law&Crime Network’s On the Case podcast, host Chris Stewart framed a question about 42-year-old North Texas realtor Mayra Velasquez. Looking at her mugshot, he wondered if her tears showed someone wrongly accused or “the tears of a killer who could no longer outrun the consequences.”

Vacations and a New Life

Fox News reported that after the alleged killing, Velasquez lived a comfortable lifestyle and “posted global vacations before arrest.” Her social media showed trips to Paris and Jamaica.

She had a baby in 2013, built a family, and kept an active real estate license. On the surface of it, everything looked fine and dandy for Velasquez.

A Drop of Blood and a Family Tree

The break in the case came from a single drop of blood left on a bedroom TV stand. Lab results showed the blood belonged to an unknown Hispanic woman.

According to Stewart’s coverage, detectives uploaded the DNA into the national database CODIS, but got zero hits. In 2016, Parabon Nanolabs created a digital image of the suspect based on the DNA. Still, the case went cold.

The Fort Worth Report stated that Arlington police reached out to the FBI in late 2024 to try investigative genetic genealogy. The FBI agreed. Analysts built a family tree using commercial DNA databases. The trail pointed to Velasquez.

Tailed to Lunch

Undercover officers followed Mayra Velasquez to a restaurant where she ate lunch with friends. As detailed in People magazine, investigators collected “two plastic forks” that she threw away to extract her DNA.

According to investigators, the DNA collected from the forks matched the blood recovered from the TV stand in 2012.

Appearing on Stewart’s podcast, forensic expert Joseph Scott Morgan explained how offender DNA ends up at the scene during brutal attacks.

When someone stabs a victim dozens of times, blood makes the knife handle slick. Without a handguard, the attacker’s hand slips down the blade and gets cut.

The Fight Over Bond

As of July 2026, court records show Velasquez sits in the Lon Evans Correction Center without bond. Her lawyers filed a writ of habeas corpus to challenge the no-bond order.

They argued that Velasquez has no prior criminal record, isn’t a flight risk, and that the evidence against her is flawed. Prosecutors disagree, pointing to the blood drop on the TV stand as solid proof.

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