FORT WORTH -- A teen found dead near her Euless apartment in May after she was reported missing by her father was strangled, according to a final ruling by the Tarrant County medical examiner's office.
In a finding that took more than six months, the medical examiner said that Ashley Valladares, 19, was strangled, and her death was ruled a homicide. The ruling was released late last week.Authorities said they took so long to make the ruling because of the condition of Valladares' body."There was decomposition," Linda Anderson, a spokeswoman with the medical examiner's office, said in a recent interview.Jamil Valladares, Ashley's father, said Sunday that the ruling comes as no surprise."As a father, I knew deep down inside that someone had killed her," Jamil Valladares said in a telephone interview. "It's been very frustrating."He said no one has been arrested in the case.Euless police could not be reached Sunday.Ashley Valladares was last seen May 4 by her boyfriend, who told Euless police that he left the apartment the two shared after an argument.When he returned a few hours later, Ashley Valladares was gone, the boyfriend told Euless police.Her body was found May 18 in a stand of trees about 150 yards from one side of the apartment complex where Valladares lived with her boyfriend in the 300 block of South Industrial Boulevard in Euless.Jamil Valladares said Sunday that his daughter was found with some of her clothes and a blanket."It's like someone just dumped her there," Jamil Valladares said.The night Ashley vanished, she and her boyfriend argued about whether she should give a haircut to a man who showed up at their door at 11:30 p.m. May 4, the boyfriend told police.Ashley cut hair to supplement her income from a job at a Euless KFC restaurant, about a mile from her apartment.The boyfriend told the Star-Telegram in an interview that he told Ashley to cut the man's hair another time, but she told him she needed the money to pay rent.The boyfriend told police that he walked out of the apartment with Ashley clutching his shirt, trying to stop him from leaving. He said he returned about 2 a.m., and neither Ashley nor the man who had come for the haircut were there.When police asked him what he thought had happened, the boyfriend said that Ashley "probably ran off with another guy."But friends and family said she would not have left without her purse, clothes, paycheck and cellphone.Euless police had made calls to the couple's apartment before the woman's disappearance.On April 29, a Euless police officer went to the apartment in response to a domestic disturbance call. The police report said Ashley Valladares acknowledged that she had torn up the apartment and cut her finger on some broken glass. She told the officer that she was angry because she found text messages from another woman on her boyfriend's cellphone.The officer determined that no assault had occurred.When police returned May 6 in response to her father's missing-person report, an officer found dried blood on the apartment walls, apparently from her cut finger April 29.Jamil Valladares said he hasn't talked to his daughter's boyfriend in months."I just want someone arrested for this," he said Sunday. "I don't know when that will happen."This report contains information from Star-Telegram archives.Domingo Ramirez Jr.,817-390-7763Twitter: @mingoramirezjrHave more to add? News tip? Tell us
