A Dallas teenager was charged with murder just hours after an AMBER Alert was issued for the girl when she briefly went missing under “suspicious circumstances.”
The Friday morning alert for 17-year-old Natalie Navarro was cancelled when she was found safe, but in a bizarre twist, she now faces a murder charge.
Ms Navarro and the suspect in her reported disappearance, 21-year-old Yordy “Jordy” Martinez, are both wanted in the 29 August shooting death of Arturo Pena, also 21.
Pena’s body was found in a vehicle along West Oates Road in Audubon Park in Garland, Texas last week. He had been reported missing to the Dallas Police Department on 27 August.
Both Ms Navarro and Mr Martinez had warrants out for their arrest in connection to Pena’s death when the AMBER Alert was issued.
Further details about Ms Navarro’s arrest were not released and Garland police say they are still “trying to figure out exactly” how the three individuals knew each other.
Mr Martinez is feared to have fled across the US-Mexico border and remains at large. He has a criminal history that includes a felony indictment for allegedly shooting a gun into a house in Garland last November.
“There’s a lot of stuff going out, we’ve collected a lot of evidence, so we’re trying to process everything right now,’ Lt Richard Maldonado of the Garland Police Department said.
“The reason why this happened, we’ve yet to totally determine that,” he added about a potential motive.
“We hope to get more when we talk to Natalie to see exactly what was going on if these persons knew each other, if they had a relationship, if there was a falling out.”
Anyone with information on Mr Martinez’s location or Pena’s murder is asked to call the Garland Police at 972-485-4840
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