On May 13, 2021, Jose Sifuentes, then 43, pleaded guilty in Dallas County, Texas, to murder in the deaths of three women. Under a plea agreement he received a life sentence in each of the three cases, and the sentences run concurrently. The Dallas County District Attorney, John Creuzot, announced the outcome. The name of the court and the judge is not on record.
The three women were Maria de Lourdes Perales, 20; Erica Olivia Hernandez, 23; and Veronica Hernandez, 27. Two of the deaths date to 1998 and one to 2003, so the cases span five years and three separate events. Prosecutor Leighton D'Antoni, who handled the case, said at sentencing that the detectives who worked it "always, always stayed on top of it." Creuzot said, "We continue to pray for the healing of the families of the victims."
Maria de Lourdes Perales was 20 when she was found dead in Dallas in February 1998. Erica Olivia Hernandez was 23 when she was found dead in Dallas in June 1998, about four months later. Veronica Hernandez was 27 when she was found dead in Dallas in May 2003.
Their families, hometowns and plans are not on record. The two 1998 cases stayed open for years. Veronica Hernandez's case led to the first arrest.
In 1998 Dallas detectives suspected that one offender was responsible for the two deaths that year. John Palmer was the original detective on the cases. No one was charged in 1998.
In May 2003 Sifuentes was arrested in Dallas County on a murder charge in the death of Veronica Hernandez. At that time it was the only killing police connected to him.
He spent about two months in jail and then posted bond. The amount of the bond is not on record. He was released in July 2003, days before he was indicted on a murder charge, and he left the United States for Mexico, where he stayed for most of the next seventeen years.
While he was in Mexico, DNA evidence led police to name him in the two 1998 cases. A Dallas police cold case detective, Noe Camacho, found that Sifuentes had never been charged in them. The Dallas County District Attorney's cold case team, funded by a federal grant that pays for investigators, victim advocates and prosecutors, took the cases. In 2017 the team obtained indictments against him on two counts of capital murder for the 1998 deaths. By then he was a fugitive, also wanted on a federal charge of unlawful flight to avoid prosecution.
In 2016 Dallas police and the District Attorney's office applied through the U.S. Department of Justice for a provisional arrest warrant, and after the 2017 indictments a Mexican judge issued an international provisional arrest warrant in January 2019. Mexican federal authorities arrested him in April 2019, and extradition proceedings followed.
He was returned to Dallas on January 8, 2020, and booked into the Dallas County Jail. He was 42. At the time he faced three capital murder cases.
After his return, the District Attorney's cold case team asked the public for information on other unsolved killings of women in Dallas County between 1993 and 2003. No other killing has been charged to Sifuentes, and nothing connects him to any other case.
On May 13, 2021, the District Attorney announced the guilty pleas and sentences. Three life sentences, concurrent, ended the three cases. He had been extradited from Mexico the year before. Dates of the individual pleas, and whether any hearing took place in open court, are not on record. A later appeal is not on record.
The three life sentences were the last court outcome on record. His present prison is not on record, and no change in his sentence since May 2021 is on record.
February 1998: Maria de Lourdes Perales, 20, dies in Dallas.
June 1998: Erica Olivia Hernandez, 23, dies in Dallas.
May 2003: Veronica Hernandez, 27, dies in Dallas; Sifuentes is arrested on a murder charge.
2003: after about two months in jail he posts bond and goes to Mexico; he is indicted on a murder charge.
2016: Dallas police and the District Attorney's office seek a provisional arrest warrant through the Department of Justice.
2017: the cold case team obtains two capital murder indictments for the 1998 cases.
January 2019: a Mexican judge issues an arrest warrant.
April 2019: he is arrested in Mexico.
January 8, 2020: he is returned to Dallas.
May 13, 2021: guilty pleas to murder in three cases; three concurrent life sentences.