EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – A law enforcement official says Mexico is waiting for U.S. authorities to hand over further evidence allegedly linking a former Fort Bliss soldier to the murder of a 19-year-old woman in Juarez last year.
The U.S. already provided prosecutors in Mexico crucial border crossing information to establish Saul Luna Villa was in Juarez the day Aylin Valenzuela was stabbed and shot to death.
“It is important to note this communication with American authorities has helped locate evidence in El Paso of interest in this case. We are waiting to incorporate that information diligently into the case once we obtain it,” said Wendy Chavez, head of the Crimes Against Women unit of the Chihuahua Attorney General’s Office.
She did not specify the nature of the evidence. Mexican prosecutors believe the suspect crossed the border in a black GMC Terrain and allege a security camera captured a man in a white T-shirt dropping Valenzuela’s body at an intersection from a black SUV on April 7, 2023. Prosecutors also have not said if they have a possible murder weapon.
Speaking to reporters Wednesday at a news conference broadcast on social media, Chavez highlighted the case as an example of binational cooperation.
“There is good communication with authorities in the United States. That is something we must have, being a border state,” she said. “The work done in Mexico was sufficient to link him to (a criminal) process. The evidence located in the United States will allow us to have all the evidence there is and work this femicide case diligently.”
A Chihuahua state district judge on Monday ordered Luna held for trial and gave prosecutors four months to present final findings and address objections from a defense attorney regarding a photograph the victim sent her mother the night she was killed.
The judge is holding Luna on aggravated femicide charges because the suspect and Valenzuela, who also went by Ailen Becerril and Helen Reyes, had been involved in a romantic relationship.
Luna remains in a cell at Juarez’s Cereso No. 3 prison.
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