From left, Dustin Hoffman, Frank Sellers, Mayra Velasquez and McCall Hoops sit in front of reporters in a conference room in Fort Worth, Texas.
The woman accused of killing her friend by stabbing her more than 100 times in 2012 faced reporters in a Fort Worth conference room Friday, proclaiming her innocence in the cold case that had stumped police for more than a decade.
Two days before, Velasquez was released from Tarrant County jail on a $450,000 bond after being arrested in connection with the 2012 death of 32-year-old Irasema Chavez. Police say Chavez was stabbed over 100 times in her apartment in Arlington, but struggled to definitively identify a suspect.
Velasquez, a 42-year-old real estate agent, was arrested July 16 after the FBI’s genealogy program discovered a break in the cold case. Blood found on a television in Chavez’s apartment was matched to a droplet of blood obtained from Velasquez’s discarded trash in May, according to police.
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Velasquez, who now faces a capital murder charge in Chavez’s death, looked at each reporter in the room as she spoke.
“I did not do this,” she said. “I would never do this, not to anyone. I am a good person. She was my friend. I know God and all those people who know me; they know that I could never do something like this to anyone. But I have faith in God that they’re gonna find out who did this to her.”
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In the room, Velasquez was flanked by her legal counsel, lawyers Frank Sellers, Dustin Hoffman and McCall Hoops of Sellers Law Firm. She did not take questions from reporters.
After Velasquez spoke, Sellers said the droplet of blood found on Chavez’s TV in 2012 is not enough to prove anything more than that Velasquez had once been in the apartment.
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“What does the DNA prove?” he said. “All that proves is that she had been in that apartment at some prior point, some prior time. It does not prove that she committed a brutal, heinous murder.”
At an Arlington Police news conference on June 22, lead homicide detective Tracey Dixon said police believe they have the right person in custody.
Sellers said a police surveillance video showing a hooded figure climbing the stairs to Chavez’s apartment and knocking on her door before entering on the night Chavez was killed could not be Velasquez. The video, released to the public in August 2012 in an effort to develop additional leads in the case, has resurfaced on the internet, with viewers speculating about the person’s identity.
Sellers said his firm measured the height of the stair railing and where it would line up on Velasquez, and that he believes it is not a match for his client. “I can tell you definitively that that is not Mayra Velasquez,” he said.
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Attorneys also shared new information about the relationship between Velasquez and Chavez at the news conference. The two had been friends for a few months before the killing, Hoops said, meeting when Chavez saw a car for sale.
When Velasquez overheard Chavez speaking, she could tell by Chavez’s dialect that they were from the same town in Mexico, Sellers said. They struck up a conversation and became friends, Sellers said.
With a hand on Velasquez’s shoulder, Sellers said she didn’t fit the “certain type of personality” that could kill someone.
“There’s a certain type of person who’s capable of even being involved with stabbing somebody 100 times. That type of person is not Mayra Velasquez,” he said.
Sellers said Chavez had gone through a breakup the day she was killed, which he said was “suspicious timing” that could result in a crime of passion.
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“We will be trying to get to the bottom of who’s really responsible for this, because I think it’s clear to us, and in our heart of hearts, and just knowing common sense in dealing with people, that this was not Mayra Velasquez who was responsible,” he said.
The attorney added that he has made a request to present to a grand jury, and “hope and intend to do that.”