Arrest in 14-Year-Old Texas Cold Case of Woman Stabbed Nearly 100 Times

After fourteen years, law enforcement officials in Arlington, Texas, have arrested Mayra Velasquez for the 2012 brutal killing of Irasema Chavez. The victim was discovered in her home with nearly 100 stab wounds, but the investigation stalled for over a decade due to a lack of direct matches in traditional DNA databases. Authorities finally identified Velasquez, a local real estate agent, by using investigative genetic genealogy to link crime scene DNA to her distant relatives. This breakthrough was achieved through a partnership between the Arlington Police Department and the FBI, utilizing advanced forensic tools to build a family tree that narrowed the...