LUBBOCK, TX — Seventeen years after Cynthia Joan Palacio’s body was found half-naked on a country road police have finally made an arrest in her case.
According to court documents around 7:00 a.m. in July of 2003, a mother and her young daughter saw something strange in the distance. After calling 9-1-1 authorities confirmed the victim was a 21-year-old woman that was naked from the waist down. Cynthia Palacio had been dumped in a county road near Slanton, TX.
At the time of the murder, no arrests were made, but police found semen on the young woman’s thigh and additional DNA evidence from her fingernails, blouse, and necklace that was used to identify the alleged murderer nearly two decades later.
Less than a year later in April of 2004, Palacio’s roommate was killed in circumstances that reminded police of the first murder. Police located the body of 21-year-old Linda Carbajal partially nude on a county road near New Deal. By 2005 forensics linked the murders of the two women.
According to KCBD, the tv station interviewed Carbajal in November of 2002 while she was housed at the Lubbock County Jail after being arrested for prostitution.
It’s very dangerous. I ask myself sometimes why...I’m surprised I’m alive to this day,” said Carbajal in the interview. “I’ve been through a lot. I’ve had my friends killed in front of me. I’ve seen a lot.”
According to county records Carbajal had been jailed 39 times, but during her interview, she said this would be her last because she wanted to do better for her daughter and grandmother.
Authorities finally had a break in the murders earlier this year. Back in January, 57-year-old Andy Castillo was arrested after he harassed female real-estate agents in th4e Waco areas. The victims reported they had received threatening messages that included rape threats against their children. The subsequent investigation found that nearly 100 realtors in 20 cities and 10 states bad been victims of the harassment.
Castillo was eventually located in Lubbock and he was charged with one count of stalking and two counts of criminal solicitation-aggravated sexual assault of a child.
Before he was transported back to Waco a DNA sample was taken from Castillo. This led police to connect him to the open murders.
McLennan County Sheriff Parnell McNamara, “There’s no question in our mind that he committed this murder.”
Castillo will eventually be brought to Lubbock to stand trial for his crimes.
Subscribe to the LIVE! Daily
Required
Post a comment to this article here: