Fort Worth police confirm suspect in murder of Dallas woman had stalked, harassed her
Fort Worth police detectives confirmed that a 54-year-old man who is accused of killing a 22-year-old woman this week had stalked and harassed her prior to her death.
Stanley Szeliga, of Irving, was booked into the Fort Worth jail Thursday morning and faces a murder charge in the shooting of Abigail “Abby” Saldana, of Dallas, records show.
Officers found Saldana dead in her car Tuesday off State Highway 183 eastbound after police were dispatched to the area on a report of a major accident. She was pronounced dead at the scene from gunshot wounds to her back and right arm.
The investigation remains ongoing, but the police department revealed Friday afternoon that Saldana “had been having issues recently with [Szeliga].”
“Detectives found evidence to indicate that the suspect had recently been stalking and harassing the victim and that the suspect had been following the victim just prior to the shooting,” a police spokesperson said.
After identifying Szeliga as their suspect, officers tried to speak with the 54-year-old, police said, but were not successful.
On Wednesday morning, “members of the Fort Worth Police Department SWAT team served a search warrant on the suspect’s residence in Irving, Texas,” police said. “During the service of the warrant, the suspect refused to exit the residence.”
SWAT team members forced their way into the apartment, where they found Szeliga on the balcony. He had ”several self-inflicted cut wounds on various parts of his body,” police said.
Szeliga was treated at his apartment by a police medical team and taken to a Dallas hospital for his cuts.
Once treated at the hospital, he was arrested. Szeliga was being held Friday on $250,000 bond.
Police have not released details of the evidence that led them to Szeliga but have confirmed a tracking device found on Saldana’s car is part of their investigation. It’s unclear how the two might have known each other.
Less than two weeks before her death, Saldana posted a video on Instagram showing the tracker she had found on her car.
Saldana’s mother, Jessica Contreras of Wichita Falls, told the Star-Telegram on Thursday that Saldana had managed to take down a license plate number for her stalker. Contreras said she encouraged her daughter to file a police report but doesn’t know whether she did.
Saldana, a single mother of a 5-year-old boy, moved to Dallas about two years ago, her mother said.
“I don’t know where she was going that night,” Contreras said. “We got a text about 6:30 p.m. that night, and the shooting happened about two hours later.”
This story was originally published October 29, 2021 at 1:29 PM.
