Maria Rodriguez vanished in 2018, and her body has never been found
NEED TO KNOW
- A Texas jury found a man guilty of murdering Houston mother Maria Rodriguez nearly eight years after she disappeared
- Prosecutors said deceptive text messages and surveillance footage helped build the case
- Rodriguez’s body has never been recovered
Nearly eight years after 29-year-old Maria Rodriguez disappeared without a trace, a Texas jury has found her boyfriend, Erik Arceneaux, guilty in her murder.
The guilty verdict was announced Thursday, July 3, nearly 2,933 days after Rodriguez was last seen, according to the Harris County District Attorney’s Office. Prosecutors said the sentencing phase of the trial will now begin, with Arceneaux facing anywhere from five years to life in prison.
Rodriguez, a 29-year-old Houston paralegal and mother, was last seen on June 21, 2018. Prosecutors argued that Arceneaux, Rodriguez’s boyfriend of six months, sent deceptive text messages from her phone the day she disappeared, according to the district attorney’s office.
At the time of Rodriguez’s disappearance, investigators told PEOPLE they were examining several text messages sent from her phone because of their “suspicious” nature…