‘He will be charged with murder in the first degree,’ says US president
US President Donald Trump said Sunday that a man accused of beheading a motel manager in Texas will be prosecuted to the “fullest extent of the Law.”
“I am aware of the terrible reports regarding the murder of Chandra Nagamallaiah, a well-respected person in Dallas, Texas, who was brutally beheaded, in front of his wife and son, by an ILLEGAL ALIEN from Cuba who should have never been in our Country,” Trump wrote on the US social media company Truth Social’s platform, which he owns.
Stating that Yordanis Cobos-Martinez, the suspect charged with capital murder, had been “previously arrested for terrible crimes, including child sex abuse, grand theft auto, and false imprisonment, but was released back into our Homeland under incompetent (President) Joe Biden,” he said “the time for being soft on these Illegal Immigrant Criminals is OVER.”
“This criminal, who we have in custody, will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law. He will be charged with murder in the first degree!”
Cobos-Martinez, 37, was placed in police custody Thursday after being charged with capital murder in a gruesome machete attack and decapitation of his co-worker.
In a criminal complaint obtained by Anadolu, Dallas police said he got into an argument with Nagamallaiah, 50, on Wednesday at the Downtown Suites motel, where both men worked.
Video footage from the motel showed Cobos-Martinez leaving the room, returning with a machete, and then stabbing and cutting Nagamallaiah multiple times with the weapon.
Fire and rescue crews arriving at the scene spotted Cobos-Martinez still carrying the machete and covered in blood. They directed the arriving police officers to the suspect's location and he was later arrested possessing Nagamallaiah's lanyard, key card and cell phone, which he had taken from the victim during the attack.
Cobos-Martinez was arrested and taken to Dallas Police Headquarters. He is charged with capital murder, and court records showed that he is also on an immigration hold.
During a video interview, detectives said Cobos-Martinez confessed to killing Nagamallaiah with the machete.
Previous court records obtained by news outlets showed that Cobos-Martinez had a violent rap sheet, including a 2018 felony aggravated assault charge and a misdemeanor assault charge in which he was sentenced to one year in the Harris County jail near Houston.
Cobos-Martinez was also arrested in 2023 on an out-of-state fugitive warrant for a series of crimes he was accused of committing in the state of California, including carjacking, false imprisonment and failure to appear in court.
