According to police, a Texas man chased down his girlfriend in the restaurant where she worked and stabbed her multiple times, killing her.
Santos Hernandez Cornejo, 53, is accused of murdering his girlfriend, 50-year-old Argelia Diaz Maya, shortly after midnight on Saturday in Houston, according to a press release.
According to Houston police’s probable cause arrest affidavit, Hernandez Cornejo “lied in wait” outside the Burnin’ Shell restaurant, where his girlfriend worked as a dishwasher.
When she walked out, he allegedly confronted her with a knife concealed in his waistband. After their argument, she fled back inside the restaurant, but Hernandez Cornejo pursued her and “stabbed her multiple times throughout her body,” according to police. Maya was pronounced dead by paramedics at the scene.
The suspect fled the scene but later turned himself in to law enforcement. After Miranda, Hernandez Cornejo allegedly admitted to killing his girlfriend. He reportedly told detectives that he suspected she was cheating on him, so he installed a tracker on her car and a listening device in her bedroom.
Surveillance video captured Hernandez Cornejo dropping the bloody knife in a nearby field, which cops later recovered.
According to local ABC affiliate KTRK, Hernandez Cornejo told a judge that he is an El Salvadoran national who has lived in Houston for nearly 20 years. There is an immigration hold on him. Cops told the outlet that the murder was “very aggressive” and “calculated.”
A judge initially set bond at $350,000 but later reduced it to $50,000, according to jail records.
His next court date is scheduled for August 19.
