Kamal Ghorui
A 24-year-old man accused of killing his wife just weeks after their marriage has been taken into custody in Texas, with US immigration authorities urging that he not be released.Francisco Mendez-Marin is an undocumented immigrant from Mexico and was arrested on March 18 by the Carrollton Police Department and charged with felony homicide. He is accused of fatally slitting the throat of his 20-year-old wife, Karla Rangel, during a domestic dispute in Dallas.According to officials, the couple had been married for less than a month at the time of the incident. When police reached the scene, Mendez-Marin was found with blood on his clothes and in possession of a blood-stained pocketknife.Body camera footage cited in the arrest affidavit shows him telling officers in Spanish, “I didn’t do anything bad” and “I was obligated to do it.”Following the arrest, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said it had filed an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainer, requesting local authorities not to release the suspect from custody. Mendez-Marin is currently being held at the Dallas County Jail under the custody of the Dallas County Sheriff’s Office.DHS Acting Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis issued a statement on the case. “This depraved animal murdered his own wife just one month after they were married by brutally slitting her throat with a pocketknife,” she said. “This illegal alien should have never been allowed into our country to commit this heinous murder.”She added: “ICE requested authorities in Dallas to not release this cold-blooded killer onto the streets. Thankfully, Dallas politicians cooperate with ICE, so together we can ensure this murderer is NEVER loose in American communities.”
