Inset: Santos Hernandez Cornejo (Houston police). Background: Houston, Texas, restaurant where Hernandez Cornejo is accused of killing his girlfriend (KTRK).
A Texas man chased down his girlfriend in the restaurant where she worked and stabbed her repeatedly, killing her, according to cops.
Santos Hernandez Cornejo, 53, is charged with the murder of his girlfriend, 50-year-old Argelia Diaz Maya, shortly after midnight on Saturday in Houston, according to an official press release.
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As detailed in a probable cause arrest affidavit from Houston police, Hernandez Cornejo “waited in ambush” outside the Burnin” Shell restaurant where his girlfriend worked as a dishwasher. Upon her exit, he allegedly confronted her with a knife concealed in his waistband. Following an argument, she fled back inside the restaurant, but Hernandez Cornejo pursued and “repeatedly stabbed her across her body,” according to police. Paramedics declared Maya deceased at the location.
The suspect fled the area but later voluntarily turned himself in to law enforcement. Post-Miranda, Hernandez Cornejo allegedly admitted to killing his girlfriend. He reportedly told detectives he suspected her of cheating on him, so he placed a tracker on her car and a listening device in her bedroom.
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Surveillance video was able to capture Hernandez Cornejo ditching the bloody knife in a nearby field, which cops later recovered.
Local ABC affiliate KTRK reports Hernandez Cornejo told a judge he is an El Salvadoran national who has lived in Houston for nearly two decades. There is an immigration hold on him. Cops told the outlet the slaying was “very aggressive” and “calculated.”
A judge initially set bond at $350,000 but later lowered it to $50,000, per jail records.
His next court date is scheduled for Aug. 19.
