A former prison worker has been arrested in connection to the death of a mother-of-four whose body was found in the trunk of her car in Texas last month.
Christopher Lee Maldonado was detained on Friday at a traffic stop by Texas City police officers and charged with tampering or fabricating physical evidence with the intent to impair a human corpse in connection with the death of 24-year-old Angela Mitchell.
Maldonado, who was fired as a jailor in 2019 over assault charges, was the last person Angela was known to have been with before she disappeared last month, according to a missing persons flyer distributed to the community by her family.
Angela's body was found decomposing in the trunk of her white Honda sedan on May 11 by police officers who had received a report from neighbors of a foul smell coming from the vehicle.
Angela Mitchell's body was found decomposing in the trunk of her white Honda sedan on May 11 by police officers who had received a report from neighbors of a foul smell coming from the vehicle
Angela's body was found decomposing in the trunk of her white Honda sedan (pictured) on May 11 by police officers who had received a report from neighbors of a foul smell coming from the vehicle
Christopher Maldonado was arrested
Police have not revealed her suspected cause of death. The Galveston County Medical Examiner is conducting an autopsy.
Maldonado was arrested by police on Friday in connection to detectives' 'suspicious death' investigation, officers said. The suspect was also charged with an unrelated assault charge.
He is currently being held in the Galveston County Jail with a bond of $200,000.
Galveston County Sheriff's Office confirmed to ABC13 that Maldonado was a former jailer who was fired after he was arrested and charged with assault in 2019. He later violated a protection order and was sentenced to two days in jail for the assault charge.
Angela, who has two daughters aged nine and three and two sons aged seven and seven months, has been described by family and friends as a 'loving mom'.
Her mother, Georgia Mitchell, said she reported her daughter missing on May 6 after she failed to return to her home in Dickenson the night before.
Georgia has criticized Texas City Police Department for not 'doing their job at helping us find Angela' and searching for her daughter's car sooner after friends and family were able to track down her vehicle the same day they reported her missing.
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Angela, who has two daughters aged nine and three and two sons aged seven and seven months, has been described by family and friends as a 'loving mom'
'Police didn't do any kind of investigation when the car was found,' Georgia wrote in on a GoFundMe page aimed at raising money to support Angela's four children.
'It wasn't until days later that they finally went to do a welfare check on Angela's vehicle. That's when we received the news she had passed.'
Georgia told ABC13 last month: 'I met police officers at her vehicle here in Texas City after filing a missing person report and I begged them.'
'I begged them to please search my daughter's car. "Please search my daughter's car. Please investigate this". I begged. I begged the police officers and they just dismissed me.'
Paying tribute to her daughter, Georgia wrote on the GoFundMe page: 'Angela Mitchell was a loving mom of four. She always kept a smile on her face.
'She surrounded everyone she knew with love and laughter... She will be missed tremendously.'
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