A 48-year-old Texas woman identified as Maria Narez has been located nearly three decades after she allegedly caused the death of her 3-year-old daughter, Kasandra White, in Fort Worth.
Narez was wanted by authorities after allegedly assaulting her daughter in November 1996, when she was 19 years old.
According to court records reviewed by Fox 4, Narez was indicted by a grand jury the following year but disappeared after a judge reduced her bond to $25,000.
A warrant was subsequently issued for her arrest in 1997 after her bond was forfeited. Authorities said she fled across the border and remained out of sight for almost 30 years.
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According to reports, Narez was working as a grocery store clerk when the incident occurred at her Fort Worth home.
She allegedly became angry after her daughter refused to go to bed and began beating her before throwing her against a wall.
Narez reportedly told investigators that she had been feeling depressed and stressed before she lost her temper.
Fort Worth Police Department Sergeant Fred Pendergraf was quoted at the time as saying:
“It angered her. She picked the baby up by the chest under her arms, threw her against the wall and her head struck the door edge,”
The toddler reportedly complained that she was hurt but eventually went to bed.
Narez later took her daughter to a hospital, where the child reportedly lost consciousness and died.
Despite Narez’s disappearance, authorities continued efforts to locate her.
In a statement, the Tarrant County District Attorney’s Office said:
“The DA’s office never gave up on bringing Narez back to face the charge against her and answer for the d£ath of her daughter,”
Authorities have now located Narez in Mexico, where she had reportedly remained for almost three decades.
Additional details about the circumstances of her arrest and what she had been doing during the years she was missing were not immediately disclosed.
Narez is expected to be extradited from Mexico to Tarrant County, where she will face a capital murder charge connected to her daughter’s death.
The District Attorney’s Office thanked several agencies and officials involved in locating and apprehending her, including Mexico Interpol, the U.S. Marshals Mexico Foreign Field Office, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Department of Justice Office of International Affairs, as well as investigators Tiffany Johnson and Victor Espino-Nevarez and Assistant District Attorney Steven Elliott.