Mayra Guerra was in the passenger seat of a Mitsubishi Montero when she became an eyewitness to a murder .
She cooperated with the police.
In the hours after Guerra watched the man she was dating shoot a stranger on a northside Fort Worth corner, she described the killing to officers. As he stood along a street, Fernando Mendoza gestured to Jesus Rios, who was speeding as he drove, to slow down. Rios got out and fired a round into Mendoza’s face.
Guerra cooperated with prosecutors and was sworn as a witness for the state.
She was not rewarded for her honorable effort. Rather, the 37-year-old mother of five was slain because of what she saw, authorities said.
Rios, indicted on murder in the February 2020 Mendoza homicide, was on bond in Tarrant County when on Sept. 8, 2023, he cut off a GPS monitor and fled to Mexico .
Under circumstances that are not clear, Guerra joined Rios in Mexico, possibly against her will, Guerra’s sister said.
In late September 2023, Rios strangled Guerra in the Mexican town where she was born, then headed to the border, law enforcement authorities concluded. There, he was taken into custody on an arrest warrant on the Tarrant County bond violation in connection with Mendoza’s killing.