Murder case on track for October trial
By Ron Maloney
The Gazette-Enterprise

Published September 16, 2007
SEGUIN — A Mexican man investigators say killed an Alabama woman in 2005 and dumped her body in Guadalupe County remains on track for an Oct. 29 trial date.

District Judge Gary Steel granted a continuance of a pre-trial hearing set for Thursday for Aldo Antonio Parra Martinez, 31, because his newly-appointed attorney, James Millan, had a conflicting federal court hearing.

Thursday’s hearing came one month after Steel ordered a psychological evaluation for Martinez, who was taken into custody in 2005 for allegedly strangling Lorena Cerna Carreon and leaving her body wrapped in a sheet under the Interstate 10 San Marcos River bridge in Luling.

Also in July, local attorney Heather Hollub, who sought the psychological evaluation, asked to be removed from the case because, she said, Martinez, who does not speak English, could benefit from having a Spanish-speaking attorney.

In June, Steel tossed a motion to suppress statements that Martinez purportedly made to investigators.

Martinez, who has been held since his October, 2005 arrest on an immigration issue, is charged with murder.

If proved at trial, murder is a first-degree felony punishable by five to 99 years in state prison and a $10,000 fine.

Carreon had been missing for three months when her body was found on May 11, 2005, and she was known locally as “Eva Mariaâ€