New details have been released about how police located the suspect arrested this week in the murder of an ISD Dallas assistant coach.
MESQUITE, Texas – New details have been released about how police tracked down the suspect arrested this week for the murder of a Dallas ISD teaching assistant.
Court documents reveal the evidence, adding phone records, that led them to the guy they say killed Jennifer Mendez.
Police said the two men knew each other, but the motive remains unclear.
Mesquite police said the investigation took months as they tried to gather all the evidence, adding to the communication the two men had before Mendez, 24, disappeared.
The suspect, Sixto Banegas-Matute, 34, has been transferred from Mesquite to the Dallas County Jail.
Sixto Banegas Matute
FOX 4 asked Mesquite police if there will be any additional arrests, and they said right now that’s still part of the investigation.
Mendez was last seen fueling up and having a drink at a Dallas QuikTrip on Sept. 27.
Police said the Dallas ISD teacher’s assistant left the gas station at Highway 175 and Belt Line Road and met with Banefuel-Matute.
Less than two hours later, Mendez’s phone was last pinged near a wooded area off Interstate 20 in Mesquite city limits, the site where Mendez’s remains were found scattered.
According to an arrest warrant affidavit FOX 4 obtained Friday, phone records show Mendez was texting Banegas-Matute as she left the gas station at 8:40 p.m. on the night she disappeared.
Sets of license plate tags scanned his 2015 Buick as he drove a few miles north on Lawson Road, avoiding the Mesquite wastewater treatment plant.
At the same time, it was discovered that Banegas Matute’s phone was in the same area.
Mendez’s family found his abandoned Buick parked on the shoulder of Lawson Road the day after he refused to drive home.
According to the arrest warrant affidavit, phone records then tracked both of their phones west on Interstate 20.
The two men stopped about a mile away in a wooded area.
Mendez’s remains were discovered hidden in trees two weeks after his disappearance.
Banegas-Matute’s phone sent to his indexed address at an apartment complex in Balch Springs.
Banegas-Matute police shot and killed Mendez.
One read: “Jennifer dead. You are next. You better text me back.”
Investigators could simply confirm whether the text messages came from Banegas-Matute.
However, police said more arrests are possible.
Mendez’s family members said police asked them not to communicate about the arrest so as not to jeopardize the investigation.
They said they didn’t recognize Banegas Matute.
Family members also told investigators that Mendez had had a boyfriend for a year.
Police reviewed the boyfriend’s phone records and showed he was at her home the night Mendez disappeared.
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