Lisa Dykes, and Nina Marano.
Authorities said they arrested a Texas couple who had fled while out on bond for murdering a 23-year-old woman. Lisa Dykes, 58, and Nina Marano, 50, didn’t merely skip town, according to authorities. They allegedly left the Lone Star State for Cambodia, where the FBI helped local law enforcement put them behind bars once again, according to local reports.
Dykes and Marano are charged with Charles Anthony Beltran, 32, for allegedly murdering Marisela Botello-Valadez, 23, while she was visiting Texas from Seattle to visit an ex-boyfriend. The young woman went missing Oct. 5, 2020 after going out alone, authorities said. Beltran was allegedly on surveillance with her.
He shared a home in the Dallas-suburb of Mesquite, with Dykes and Marano, authorities said. That’s where officials said they found blood matching Botello-Valadez’s on carpets and pads in what was apparently Beltran’s room.
Cops alleged in 2021 that Beltran and the couple allegedly ducked authorities and tried to hide evidence, leaving jobs and moving out out of homes in Texas and Pennsylvania.
After their arrests, Dykes and Marano allegedly ended up taking off their ankle monitors on Christmas Day while out on bond for $500,000, authorities said. Botello-Valadez’s aunt Dennesly Castillo has voiced frustration that they were able to get out of jail at all, and that Dallas County only got told about them fleeing on Jan. 4.
“They got to spend the holidays together, I assume, in the comfort of their house instead of being locked away,” she told WFAA in a Jan. 6 report. “We don’t have that option. We don’t have the option to ever be able to sit there with Marisela again and celebrate or be out and about.”
[Booking photos via Dallas County Jail]