Following an argument over a broken washing machine, a Texas motel worker allegedly took a machete to a manager’s head and chopped it off, horrifying onlookers.
Yordanis Cobos-Martinez, 37, faces capital murder charges in the death of Chandra Nagamallaiah, 50.
The incident occurred around 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday at a motel in the 3400 block of Samuell Boulevard on Dallas’ east side. According to a press release, the suspect repeatedly cut the victim with “an edged weapon”. Paramedics pronounced the victim dead on the scene.
Witness Stephanie Elliott told local ABC affiliate WFAA that the victim attempted to flee after the suspect attacked him, but fell.
“He just kept hitting him and hitting until he decapitated him,” Elliott told me. “I could not believe that anybody would do another human being that way.”
The news station also obtained an arrest affidavit, which stated that Cobos-Martinez and another motel employee were cleaning a room when the victim approached the suspect and warned him not to use a broken washing machine.
According to the affidavit, Nagamallaiah was speaking with another employee in the room so she could translate the message for Cobos-Martinez. This apparently triggered Cobos-Martinez, who allegedly walked to another room and returned with a machete before attacking the victim.
Nagamallaiah’s wife and son, who were in the motel office, attempted to stop the attack by hitting the suspect with a bat, but Cobos-Martinez continued to swing the machete at the victim’s neck, eventually chopping it off, police said.
According to KXAS, citing an affidavit, Cobos-Martinez kicked the decapitated head into the parking lot, picked it up, and dumped it in a dumpster.
The motel property owners told KXAS that Nagamallaiah was the manager for two or three years and was a hard worker.
