Prosecutors seek death penalty in trial this week of Arlington man in severed-head case
Hector “Cholo” Acosta-Ojeda will enter a courtroom on Tuesday fighting for his life.
Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against the 30-year-old Arlington man, who is accused of killing Erick “Diablo” Zelaya in 2017, severing his head and then shooting to death the victim’s 17-year-old girlfriend in Arlington.
Opening statements are scheduled for Tuesday morning in Criminal District Court No. 396.
Acosta-Ojeda is charged with capital murder in those Arlington deaths as well as the robbery and killing of Triston Ray Algiene in July 2017 in Fort Worth.
Acosta-Ojeda and another man, Felipe Eduardo Ortiz, are charged with Algiene’s murder. Algiene’s body — cut in half and concealed under a repair patch in a home’s foundation — was found Oct. 3, 2017, inside a vacant home in the 6400 block of Woodway Drive in southwest Fort Worth.
The gruesome Arlington case began with the discovery of Zelaya’s severed head on Sept. 2, 2017, near near a man-made walking trail not far from AT&T Stadium in Arlington.
That same day, Mariano Sanchez-Pina was arrested on an unrelated warrant and later gave homicide detectives information about the severed head they’d found.
Sanchez-Pina told investigators that a man he knew only as “Diablo” had been murdered and buried behind a home on Burton Drive in Arlington.
Arlington police executed a search warrant at the Burton house Sept. 3, 2017, and they found a machete, possible blood evidence and an area of ground recently disturbed in the back yard.
A subsequent search of the back yard by the Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office uncovered a human leg and foot believed to be Zelaya’s. Through additional excavation, officials eventually found the remainder of Zelaya’s body and that of his girlfriend, Iris Chirinos.
Chirinos’ body remained intact, Arlington police said.
Sanchez-Pina asked to speak to Arlington Police Department homicide Detective Grant Gildon again on Sept. 3, 2017, and told the investigator that he witnessed Acosta-Ojeda attack Zelaya, according to an affidavit. Previously, Sanchez-Pina had told Gildon that he had arrived at the house on Burton to find Zelaya already dead.
Arlington police believe the slayings were motivated by a dispute over money and drugs, and a machete was used.
In September 2017, Arlington investigators had found no indications that Chirinos was involved in the dispute, but said she may have just been at the house with her boyfriend at the wrong time.
Sanchez-Pina, 20, of Arlington, who remained in the Tarrant County Jail on Monday, has been charged with tampering with physical evidence. His trial is pending.
This report contains information from Star-Telegram archives.
