DALLAS — A North Texas woman facing a murder charge, who took the stand in her own defense earlier in the week, was found guilty Wednesday after the jury deliberated her case for about an hour and a half.
Lisa Dykes, 60, was standing trial for the murder of 23-year-old Marisela Botello-Valadez. She is one of three people facing charges in connection with Botello-Valadez's death.
The jury found Dykes guilty of murder, and guilty of tampering with evidence. She was sentenced to life in prison for the murder, plus 20 years for the tampering charge.
"May God have mercy on your soul," the judge said after reading the sentence.
On Tuesday, and then on Wednesday morning, Dykes stared down the Dallas County jury that decided her fate from the witness stand, testifying that didn't know Botello-Valadez and that her cellphone was pinged near the location where Botello-Valadez's body was discarded because she was picking up a package at a nearby FedEx distribution center.
Prosecutors said that Dykes stabbed Botello-Valadez to death in October of 2020 after she found Botello-Valadez in bed with Charles Beltran, after the pair met following a night out in Deep Ellum.
Authorities say that Dykes and her partner, Nina Marano, were in a three-way relationship with Beltran. Dykes, however, said on the stand on Tuesday that Beltran was only a business associate of hers, and that their interests had gone sideways.
Botello-Valadez was visiting Dallas from Seattle and went missing after meeting Beltran in Deep Ellum.
Her remains were found months later, in March of 2021, in a wooded area in Wilmer.
Marano and Beltran were both originally charged with murder along with Dykes, but the district attorney's office dropped the charges against the two of them during Dykes' trial.
"It is rare, I'm not sure why they waited that long," former prosecutor Toby Shook told WFAA Wednesday.
While dismissing charges mid-verdict is unusual, Shook said dismissing charges is not. Because you only need probable cause to indict someone, he explained, but need beyond a reasonable doubt to get a guilty verdict.
"So many times, cases do get dropped after they’re indicted and sometimes prosecutors will charge more than one charge even if they don’t have the strongest case, and that’s a way to get leverage on people. If they have some evidence, it’s a way to put pressure to plead or to get them to cooperate.
The same day prosecutors filed to drop the murder charges against the pair, Beltran took the stand against Dykes at trial, and testified that she killed Botello, not him.
Prosecutors did not say why they dropped the charges. But Beltran and Morano still face possible prison time. Beltran pled guilty to tampering with evidence in Botello’s case, and Morano is set for trial in the new year on the same charge.