A man is behind bars for the gruesome slaying of a Texas mother of four.
Christopher Lee Maldonado was taken into custody on Friday by Texas City Police and US Marshals during a traffic stop. Maldonado was hit with several charges relating to the death of 24-year-old Angela Leann Mitchell. The woman was last seen on May 5th in Texas City. Her mother reported her missing the following day after she failed to return home to her children.
On May 11th, a resident called 911 to report a foul odor coming from a parked vehicle. When authorities arrived, they located her body stuffed in the car’s trunk. Her family had notified police days earlier that they’d spotted her car sitting in the neighborhood, but it was not until the 911 call came in that they looked inside the vehicle. Mitchell’s mother, Georgia Mitchell, says she even met police once at the site of the car and “begged” them to search it after filing the missing person’s report but says they dismissed her.
Maldonado has been charged with tampering/fabricating physical evidence with intent to impair (human corpse) and an unrelated assault charge. Police believe that he was the last person to see Mitchell alive, though the extent of their relationship remains unclear. An autopsy is being conducted by the Galveston County Medical Examiner to determine Mitchell’s cause of death.
Maldonado remains behind bars at the Galveston County Jail on a $200,000 bond.
