The man accused of murdering a Hickory woman with a pocketknife in 2006 was arrested in a North Carolina prison.
Antonio Gonzalez Trejo, 31, was indicted Monday on the July 29, 2006, murder of Teresa Aguilera Zavala, 26.
Trejo is accused of forcing his way through the front door of her home in the Dogwood Hills Mobile Home Trailer Park at 3401 Highland Ave., NE, where he attacked Zavala with a knife.
"She put up a good fight," said Chief Deputy Coy Reid, of the Catawba County Sheriff's Office.
Zavala's boyfriend, Benjamin Fernando Rivera Mota, came home from work and found her lifeless body in a pool of blood near the back door, Reid said.
"She had numerous stab wounds," he said. "She was almost decapitated."
Reid said investigators know the motive behind the murder, but he refused to elaborate.
He did say that officers interviewed the boyfriend on the day of the murder but have not seen him since.
"He has a good alibi for that day," Reid said.
A Catawba County deputy had pulled him over in a traffic stop at the time of the murder.
Mota has not been told that an arrest has been made in his girlfriend's slaying. He is considered a person of interest in the case and Reid said investigators would like to ask him additional questions.
Investigators say Zavala knew the man who murdered her. She and Mota had lived with Antonio Trejo before they moved to Catawba County, Reid said.
Catawba County Sheriff's deputies have been investigating the murder with help from the SBI for nearly four years. Their investigation led them to Trejo five months ago.
He was already behind bars serving a 10-year, 9-month sentence for a similar but unrelated knife attack on a woman, Reid said. This time his victim survived, and Trejo was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury in November 2008.
Trejo and his second victim knew each other, Reid said.
The victim lived in a mobile home park on Sipe Road in Conover. She was not sexually assaulted, but the sheriff's office believes that was the intent. She was in bed and he attacked her and stabbed her, Reid said.
"He is a very violent person. This is the second person he's done this to – there may be more," Reid said.
Since his arrest, Trejo has cooperated with the investigation and has given investigators a statement.
Trejo made statements about Zavala that Reid called "the nail in the coffin."
Trejo will be brought to Catawba County for his first court appearance – hopefully within the next five days, Reid said.
BACKGROUND:
Teresa Zavala was 26 years old when she was murdered in her Hickory home.
She came to the United States in 2004 to earn money for her struggling family. The oldest of three sisters, she was born in Guanajuato, Mexico.
Investigators are still looking for someone who was identified as a person of interest early on. He is described as a man with strawberry blond hair, a goatee, about six feet tall, 180 pounds and in his late 20s or early 30s.
He was seen knocking on the door of the home Zavala shared with her boyfriend between 9:45 a.m. and 10 a.m. and investigators believe he may have witnessed the murder.
Investigators also are searching for Zavala's boyfriend, Fernando Rivera. He left the area not long after Zavala's murder. Authorities say they believe he is in Florida.
Zavala was killed between 10 a.m. and 11 a.m.
Investigators found the murder weapon – a pocketknife with a five-inch blade – at the murder scene.
Neighbor Sonya Maynor said Zavala and Mota moved into the park about two months before Zavala was killed. She said the couple was always quiet.
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