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Police arrested and charged 22-year-old Arturo Flores with the murder of 16-year-old Venus Rodriguez Friday evening.
Flores is currently being held in Dallas County jail on a $500,000 bond.
Family members of Rodriguez told the Advocate that the teenager had run away from home in September 2022, two days before her sixteenth birthday, and they told detectives they suspected she was with Flores.
On the morning of Jan. 16, Rodriguez’s body was found in a creek near having suffered multiple gunshot wounds 1700 block of Brookhaven Drive.
According to an arrest affidavit obtained by WFAA, Flores lived just over 350 feet away from the spot Rodriguez’s body had been dumped.
Neighbors told police that the relationship between Rodriguez and Flores had been physically abusive, and that Flores had chased Rodriguez down the residential street just weeks before she was killed.
When being interviewed about Rodriguez’s slaying, Flores “showed no emotion and seemed indifferent,” WFAA says.
Police charged Flores with Rodriguez’s murder after tying a blanket found over her body back to the man.
Police found a photo of the blanket in a social media post made by Rodriguez, and family members told police Rodriguez and Flores used the blanket while caring for their pet dog.
Additional reporting from WFAA describes the grisly details uncovered at the crime scene. Read those below.
While he was being interviewed by police, a family member was seen leaving Flores’ home and was pulled over by Dallas police. The family member told police that he had two guns in the vehicle, both of which belonged to him. Dallas Police said two guns were located but it was unclear if one of them was the murder weapon. The vehicle was towed for additional crime scene processing.
After getting a search warrant for Flores’ home, Dallas police found a “brand new air mattress” inside his room. The affidavit said a witness told police that they saw a family member loading up a mattress into a truck and driving off on Jan. 12. Crime scene technicians processed the area underneath the air mattress in search of blood that might have been cleaned up. After utilizing forensic tools, the affidavit said police found evidence of blood in the carpet under the bed that had been cleaned up.
